GREEN BAY, Wisconsin – In some ways, Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur has a very different job this season.
Four years ago, Lafleur was hired to restore Aaron Rodgers to the elite level after a sharp drop in production. In their second season together, Rodgers won his third of four NFL MVPs.
Even though they haven’t won a Super Bowl together — they haven’t even had one — LaFleur may now look back at the past four years as now all he has to do is turn Jordan Love into the Packers’ third straight quarterback to win the MVP and a Super Bowl. pee.
Good thing Lafleur has experience breaking into the starting quarterback.
While most of his recent work has come with veterans — before Rodgers it was Ryan Tannehill at Tennessee and Matt Ryan at Atlanta — it shouldn’t be forgotten that LaFleur coached young quarterbacks before. He served as Washington’s quarterbacks coach when the team drafted Robert Griffin III in 2012 and made him an immediate starter. He was the Rams’ offensive coordinator in 2016 when Jared Goff became a full-time starter.
“There have been highs and lows along the way,” Lafleur said recently. “I think we have to be really, really intentional about what we bring to all of these people because ultimately it’s the whole group that gets out there and has to perform and execute at a high level.”
Quarterbacks coach Tom Clements will be as important to Love as anyone inside Lambeau Stadium. Last season, LaFleur brought Clements back, whose first stint was with the Packers from 2006 to 2016, because Rodgers wanted to work with him again.
It also allowed Love to learn from Clements the things – specifically footwork and timing – that Rodgers believed shaped him early in his development. Offensive coordinator Adam Stinavic, passing game coordinator Jason Fabel, and assistant quarterbacks coach Connor Lewis will have a role in Love’s success or failure as well.
In the end, though, it’s in LaFleur.
“Any great coach will tell you that the relationship between the head coach and the quarterback is the most important relationship on the entire team,” said ESPN analyst Griffin. “Matt is a relationship guy. At the end of the day, whoever Matt is, it’s all about building that relationship where you trust him.”
Griffin noticed this in Lafleur from the very beginning.
“He sat me down at our first meeting, and he said to me, ‘What we train you to do is what we expect you to do out there on the field. So if we rehearsed you for something and you did it to a T, we wouldn’t go back to the movie room and do a circuit or light this guy wide open that isn’t your reading,” Griffin recalls.
At the time, all Griffin could think to himself was, “Okay, cool, I’m going to hit the open guy.”
“But when I look back later, they were just trying to say, ‘Listen, we’ve got your back.'” “You’ll put on some plays just because of your natural ability, but if you listen to us and trust us, we’re not going to throw you under the bus,” said Griffin. “And I think Matt has always stayed true to that, and I think that’s why Jordan Love will have the best chance of success because he has a head coach who understands how to manage a quarterback.”
Griffin didn’t have the three-year head start with LaFleur that Love did. Griffin played right away and won NFC Offensive Rookie of the Year honors, though a late-season knee injury altered the rest of his career.
The fourth year unofficially kicked off Monday, when Love reported the start of the Packers offseason.
Mother Nature welcomes us back into action! ❄️ @jordan3love | #GoPackGo pic.twitter.com/x9fcGkr2H3
– Green Bay Packers April 17, 2023
“People are wondering, what can Matt do to help Jordan?” Griffin said. “He’s really done that. He’s built the relationship. I’ve seen the improvement from Jordan Love on the field in his limited shots. Last year, he looked light years ahead of his previous stints. And I think he’s got the confidence of the coaching staff and the front office now that She may have been missing last year.”
All anyone out there has to go on is what they’ve seen of Love in their short game. He struggled in his only career start — a 13-7 loss at Kansas City in 2021 when Rodgers was out with COVID — but was more productive in two series last season facing the Eagles in late November. A pair of scoring strikes drove in the fourth quarter on only two possessions after Rodgers left with a rib injury.
“That’s why this whole process is so critical to everything you do,” said former NFL coach Todd Haley. “These guys have to go through this and evolve and learn so that you can trust him enough to say, ‘Okay, he can play.'” “
There is a long way between those experiences and what love will soon face week after week.
“You have to throw as many human beings as possible at him,” said Lafleur.
This will include joint training with another team (that team has yet to be announced) as well as much more work than most quarterbacks will get in pre-season games.
“Jordan certainly doesn’t have a lot of game reps, so you want to give him as much as possible,” said Lafleur. “I would say our whole situation is going to be very fluid in that you have to stay one step ahead of the game and what needs [he has] For him to develop the way we want him to develop.”
And that would be in the hands of Lafleur.
“Obviously we have a great coaching staff, he’s been in our system for three years, he’s comfortable with the guys around him,” said Packers general manager Brian Gutkunst. “This is a difficult role, it’s hard to be successful. But at the same time, I know he’s put in the work. There’s going to be adversity, it doesn’t matter who you are, there’s going to be adversity. So how you respond to that, how you overcome it, that’s going to be a big factor for him.” And for his learning stage – you will have those scars, if you will, so that he can move forward successfully.”