Despite a stellar regular-season record, Matt LaFleur’s dismal playoff percentage and a late-season collapse have put him on notice. For the Green Bay Packers, only Super Bowl trophies ensure security.
Head coach Matt LaFleur has to win in 2026, but it's more than just that. He's done plenty of winning for the Green Bay Packers.
LaFleur boasts a 76-40-1 regular season record in seven seasons with the Packers. That's good for a winning percentage of .654%. That's sixth-best amongst all active NFL head coaches.
He's taken the Packers to the playoffs in six out of seven seasons.
So no, it's not winning that's the problem for LaFleur and the Packers. It's when those wins comes.
After last season's disappointing playoff loss to the Chicago Bears in the NFC Wild Card round, LaFleur is just 3-6 as a head coach in the playoffs.
His winning percentage drops from .654% to .333% when it really matters. That's the second-worst amongst all active NFL head coaches and the 89th worst all-time when evaluating the 107 coaches who have led a team in the playoffs since 1928.
For what it's worth, the best winning percentage in the playoffs belongs to Vince Lombardi, at .900%.
Lombardi is, of course, the standard in Green Bay and arguably across the league, but a better comparison for LaFleur is former Packers head coach Mike McCarthy -- now the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. His winning percentage in the playoffs is .500%.
McCarthy was criticized for being unable to get the Packers back over the hump after winning the Super Bowl in 2010-11, but he did at the very least win a Super Bowl.
Forget Lombardi and his winning percentage for a moment. Instead, focus on his last name. The expectation in Green Bay is to win the Lombardi Trophy, and the Packers haven't done that since McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers did in that epic 2010-11 season.
It has been 15 long years since the Packers hoisted that trophy, and after two straight trips to the NFC Championship with Aaron Rodgers as quarterback in 2019 and 2020, the Packers don't seem any closer to winning the Super Bowl than they did in the moments directly following the disastrous 2014 NFC Championship Game collapse to the Seattle Seahawks.
Forget the regular season. It's been a long time since the trophy named after Green Bay's legendary head coach has been hoisted by a player wearing green and gold.
That's LaFleur's ultimate goal. That's his pass-or-fail test at the end of this 2026 season, and unfortunately, our last impression of Green Bay's current head coach doesn't inspire confidence.
Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur leads his team againt the New York Jets during their football game Saturday, August 9, 2025, at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.The Packers finished the 2025-26 campaign on a five-game losing skid that featured multiple collapses and two heartbreaking losses to their biggest rival.
That was the taste in the mouth of team president and CEO Ed Policy at the end of the season, and yet he extended LaFleur, general manager Brian Gutekunst and vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball with a multi-year deal in January of 2026.
The exact details of that deal weren't disclosed, but the fact that it had several years attached to it shouldn't mean anything for LaFleur as the Packers head into this 2026 season.
The Super Bowl is still the standard, and if LaFleur can't turn around his winning percentage in the playoffs and get the Packers closer to that Lombardi Trophy, there could be a world in which that extension means nothing by the time 2027 rolls around.
That's how it should be, at least. They don't call it "Title Town" for nothing.
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