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Is Packers Coach Matt LaFleur on Thin Ice? Here Are Latest Hot-Seat Rankings

Matt LaFleur’s Packers are an ugly 2-2 headed into Sunday’s showdown against the Chicago Bears.
Bill Huber|
Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur calls a play during the win at Tampa Bay.
Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur calls a play during the win at Tampa Bay. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

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Green Bay Packers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Is Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur on the hot seat?

A team that’s built to win a Super Bowl is about the ugliest 2-2 imaginable and facing a Week 5 showdown against the rival Chicago Bears, whose coach, Ben Johnson, would love to push LaFleur off the hot seat and into the boiling cauldron.

On the other hand, while the NFL is a bottom-line business, there needs to be some nuance to the conversation about LaFleur’s future.

“LaFleur’s roster right now is a nightmare,” noted Sports Illustrated’s Conor Orr, who put LaFleur at No. 4 in his latest hot-seat rankings.

That is undeniably true.

LaFleur’s calling card is his creativity as an offensive play-designer and play-caller. The offense, however, ranks just 27th in points scored.

Is that LaFleur’s fault? Or is that the fault of a combination of misfortune, with season-ending injuries to receiver Jayden Reed and Zach Bako-Bewele, and poor roster construction by general manager Brian Gutekunst, who was guilty of overrating the talent on the offensive line?

On paper, running back Josh Jacobs, tight end Tucker Kraft and receivers Christian Watson, Matthew Golden and Jayden Reed would be a formidable quintet.

But Jacobs is, essentially, serving an indefinite suspension, Kraft is coming off a torn ACL and Reed is out following a neck injury. Those five players didn’t play a single snap together last season and they won’t this season.

Without Jacobs and with that had been a subpar offensive line, the running game has been terrible.

The defense, meanwhile, is starting the season without its best player, Micah Parsons, and just lost arguably its second-best player, Edgerrin Cooper, to a torn Achilles.

“Green Bay has something like 30 percent of its total salary cap either on injured reserve or the commissioner exempt list,” Orr noted.

Then again, the Packers hold the dubious NFL leads for penalty yards, dropped passes and fumbles. LaFleur isn’t guilty of false starts and drops, but those continued mistakes reflect poorly on the coach and his staff.

“Green Bay had a string of high-improbability losses last season and already saw a divisional game against the Vikings turn violently on the heels of a strange fourth-down decision,” Orr concluded as part of a much more extensive and thoughtful breakdown.

“But LaFleur has also been making tuna salad out of a dreadful situation in 2026. Jordan Love’s hit total went way down on Sunday, and the Packers’ rushing game looked like it improved marginally. He deserves credit for that.”

LaFleur is No. 5 in Fox Sports’ hot-seat rankings, with Ralph Vacchiano placing him between the Eagles’ Nick Sirianni and the Chargers’ Jim Harbaugh. 

The contract extension that LaFleur was given after last season’s flameout could be his saving grace this time around, with Vacchiano wondering if the team’s board of directors would be willing to eat the remainder of a contract that is believed to be worth in the neighborhood of $15 million per year.

“However,” he continued, “the Packers also can’t ignore what’s happening to his team. They are regressing offensively even though they have an outstanding young quarterback in Jordan Love and an array of good receivers. And the defense has taken a huge step back after the loss of DC Jeff Hafley.”

Those last two points aren’t exactly accurate. Watson and Golden aren’t exactly an “array” of receivers, and the defense hasn’t taken a “huge step back” under new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon.

Regardless, Vacchiano is correct that the Packers “are at risk of being buried in a very dangerous division.” That’s part of what makes this such a huge game for the Packers.

At CBS, LaFleur ranks only ninth and the hot seat is actually “cool.” Bryan DeArdo also pointed to the contract, though it’s important to note the Packers would be off the hook (at least partially) if LaFleur were to land on his feet in the next coaching cycle.

“Because of his contract, the only way LeFleur's job would actually be in jeopardy at season's end is if the Packers have an epic collapse and there are rumblings that he's lost the locker room,” DeArdo wrote (while misspelling LaFleur’s name).

In the prediction markets, LaFleur’s seat has cooled considerably since the night of the blowout loss to the Falcons. At Kalshi, for instance, his odds to be “out before March” were as high as 90 percent. It was at 20 percent on Thursday morning but bounced up to 28 percent while this story was being written.

This, obviously, is a huge game for the Packers. They are 2-2, with their two wins coming against teams with a combined 1-7 record. With a win, they’d be in second place in the division and right in the thick of everything that they set out to accomplish this season. With a loss, they’d be in last place in the division and in deep trouble.

LaFleur, for his part, is keeping the messaging as normal as possible this week. It’s not about him. It’s not about Ben Johnson. It’s about winning this game.

“I do think, it’s an NFC North opponent and they’re the defending champion,” he said on Wednesday. “So, there’s always an added importance in divisional games. And they’re one of the premier teams in the National Football League. I think our guys will be ready to roll, but it’s more important that we focus on the day to day, making sure our process is right and making sure our preparation’s on point.”

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.