On March 5, the world was still awaiting confirmation that the NFL’s reigning most valuable player planned to return to Green Bay.
Aaron Rodgers was a couple of thousand miles from Green Bay, and as far as the Packers knew, his mind might have been further. Serving as the officiant of the marriage for teammate David Bakhtiari and Frankie Shebby at the Rosewood Miramar Hotel in Montecito, Calif., Rodgers undoubtedly was having thoughts beyond the everyday variety.
Also at the wedding was Packers coach Matt LaFleur, who had the opportunity at the reception to lead Rodgers to the bar, offer him something strong and straight up, and make a pitch for Rodgers to come home with him.
But he didn’t.
“We didn’t even talk about it, to tell you the truth,” LaFleur says — it being his quarterback’s future. “It wasn’t the time or place to put the pressure on him. … It’s not why we were there. Ultimately, we were there to support David and Frankie, and I didn’t want to take away from that experience.”
Which may explain, in part, why three days after the wedding, Rodgers informed LaFleur — “Matty,” he calls him — that the vows between the Packers and their passer would be renewed.
In multiple conversations over the two days after the end of the Packers’ season, LaFleur made sure Rodgers knew how much he was wanted. Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst, president Mark Murphy and director of football operations Russ Ball also were involved in the discussions.
And then LaFleur backed off. He wanted to give Rodgers time and space.
Coaching is about many things, but one of the foundational, overlooked aspects is trust. Without it, nothing.
Between LaFleur and Rodgers, there is trust.
As much as anything, it’s why Rodgers will be a Packer in 2022. It’s why he was a Packer in 2021. It’s also a reason Rodgers was voted the league’s most valuable player the last two years. And why the Packers are 39-10 under LaFleur.
LaFleur has become more than a head coach for the Packers.
He has been the force that keeps the team a team.
For LaFleur, establishing himself as a first-time head coach in 2019 was one thing. It was another to earn the trust of an independent-minded, future Hall of Fame quarterback who reputedly could be as cold as a Lambeau Field goal post in January.
LaFleur’s approach was to lock arms with Rodgers, as much as Rodgers was willing, and he set out to blend the Shanahan system he had been a part of for eight of the previous nine years with the plays and concepts Rodgers favored. Initially, there was some negotiation about how much freedom Rodgers would be given to make adjustments at the line of scrimmage. LaFleur acknowledges it “took a minute” for him and Rodgers to get on the same page.
If all their interactions were about throwing a football, their relationship would have been restricted. LaFleur was hoping for a deeper connection.
In LaFleur’s first offseason, he saw something in Rodgers that made him take notice — his “big heart,” in the words of LaFleur. When the team hosted kids and their families from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the coach noticed Rodgers did more than provide autographs like he was signing checks to pay bills. He sat with them, ate lunch and showed genuine interest in their interests.
“You don’t always see the superstars do that,” LaFleur says. “You might see them greet them, but this was legitimately asking them questions, spending time with them.”
In June, before his first season, LaFleur threw the first pitch at the Green and Gold charity softball game at Fox Cities Stadium in Grand Chute, Wis. His sons, Luke and Ty, were there, as was his quarterback.
Ty, five at the time, had a loose tooth. He was apprehensive, as he had not yet lost a tooth. Rodgers talked him through it and wiggled the tooth for him. It eventually came out, giving Ty a story that he might tell his grandkids.
“Those are some of the most special memories my kids will have,” LaFleur says of interactions with Rodgers. “That is special, really special.”
The Make-A-Wish visits and Ty’s tooth didn’t get as much attention as the Packers’ flameout in the NFC Championship Game that season and the team’s subsequent selection of Jordan Love with the 26th pick of the 2020 draft. But those undiscovered moments helped bring LaFleur and Rodgers together and keep them together through the coming turbulence.
LaFleur’s commitment to the Packers and Rodgers led to a spirit of cooperation from the quarterback.
“Whether you are leading a football team, an offense or an office, guys will follow you if you show them how much it means to you and how hard you work, more than what you say,” Rodgers said in January. “We got to see that early on from Matty.”
The coach-quarterback relationship ultimately helped LaFleur build trust with his entire team.
An NFL coach having three rules and only three rules is not ground-breaking.
John Madden had them. Pete Carroll uses them. Sean McVay, too.
But three rules can be effective.
When LaFleur worked for Dan Quinn on the Falcons in 2015 and ’16, Quinn had three rules. LaFleur came up with his own version.
Team first.
No excuses.
Be on time and be prepared.
“They are very simplistic rules,” LaFleur says. “As a coach, you have to be careful of having too many rules because you can paint yourself into a corner. The three rules are very easy to abide by, in our opinion. Our guys do a great job of taking them to heart.”
The three rules require trust because there is much left assumed with only three. Those rules and the trust they fostered helped the Packers to 26 regular-season victories in LaFleur’s first two seasons. But neither season ended the way they wanted.
In LaFleur’s second season, the Packers were trailing the Bucs 31-23 in the NFC Championship Game with 2:09 remaining when LaFleur called for a 26-yard field goal attempt on fourth down from the 8-yard line. Mason Crosby connected to narrow the gap to four points. But the Packers never got the ball back. On the third-and-goal play from the 8 before the field goal, Rodgers threw an incompletion to Davante Adams instead of trying to run even though he appeared to have space.
LaFleur defended his decision to kick the field goal. But he also took the blame for the loss, saying he failed to tell Rodgers he wouldn’t have a fourth down to try to convert.
His response reflected rule No. 1: Team first.
Despite all that was lost that day, more trust was won.
The more of it LaFleur gets, the more of it he gives.
The Packers played in Green Bay last Christmas Day. Instead of having the entire team stay at a hotel the night before the game, which is customary for NFL teams, LaFleur allowed veterans to stay home. It was well-received, so LaFleur instituted a new policy that vets never have to stay at the team hotel on the night before home games.
“I just have so much trust in these guys that they are doing the right thing,” LaFleur says. “I don’t need to sit there and babysit them. They are grown men. This is their job and I expect them to come to work ready to play. Whatever is going to help them be their best, that’s what we want. If that means staying in their own home, in their own bed, do that.”
When team leaders Rodgers, Adams, Kenny Clark, Adrian Amos, Marcedes Lewis, De’Vondre Campbell, Preston Smith and others had something to say, LaFleur stopped talking. And if they questioned something, he often responded with a reconsideration.
The week after the Saturday Christmas Day game, the Packers had an extra practice scheduled. Some of the leaders didn’t think it was in the team’s best interests and told LaFleur a day off their feet would be more beneficial. LaFleur called off the practice.
“There’s a lot of trust built up at this point between Matt and our players to protect them and put their best interest at heart and ultimately get the team that’s going to be fresher whenever we play,” says Darryl Franklin, LaFleur’s chief of staff.
Franklin, who has known LaFleur since they were graduate assistants at Central Michigan in 2005, says he perceived a decrease in LaFleur’s anxiety last season. He believes it was evident in how the Packers played. Rodgers agrees, saying he has seen LaFleur loosen up and worry less about the little things.
“With all the trust I have with everybody, I would like to think I’ve chilled out a little bit,” LaFleur says.
He has chilled to the point that he is comfortable dealing with failures. For some coaches, failures beget more failures. For others, they are growth experiences.
After the Saints stunned the Packers 38-3 in the opening game of the 2021 season, LaFleur said, “Obviously, I didn’t get these guys ready to play ball.”
And when the Packers lost to the Chiefs 13-7 in November with Rodgers absent because of COVID-19 protocols, LaFleur took the blame again. He explained that he should not have expected Love to use the same tools to deal with blitzes that Rodgers could, given the difference in their experience levels.
After the Packers lost to the 49ers 13-10 in the divisional playoff round, LaFleur didn’t speak with coded words about how Rodgers failed to capture the big moments or hint at his dissatisfaction with a special teams unit that gave up a blocked punt, a blocked field goal and had 10 men on the field for the 49ers’ field goal that won the game.
As part of his opening statement, LaFleur said, “Obviously, I didn’t do enough to get our team prepared to win a football game. Certainly, when we only score 10 points offensively, I put that all on myself.”
On the postgame stage, LaFleur steps in front of the targeted and invites fire. The way he does it is organic and yet purposeful.
“As a leader, you have to own everything,” he explains. “There is something to accepting responsibility, and I think there is a trickle-down effect. If I can stand up and say I could have done things better, I think people are more receptive to accepting constructive criticism.”
Rule No. 1: Team first.
The partnership between LaFleur and Rodgers now is 53 games old. Theirs has been the most scrutinized relationship in the NFL, and it has held up under the surgical lights.
“The last couple of years have been really, really seamless for us,” Rodgers says.
Of course, there were several unsightly seams between Rodgers and others in the organization. When LaFleur realized how perturbed Rodgers was last offseason, Rodgers said his coach was on the next flight to visit him in Malibu, Calif.
“That was definitely meaningful to me,” Rodgers says.
The plan was dinner at Rodgers’ place — just the two of them and Rodgers’ girlfriend, Shailene Woodley. LaFleur showed up with a bottle of scotch, the kind stores keep in a case behind the counter. The only issue was Rodgers was in the middle of a cleanse.
He wasn’t grilling T-bones. He was cooking dal and kitchari.
“Good old Matty, he showed up and ate a bowl and a half of everything,” Rodgers says.
And so the toxins in the relationship between Rodgers and the Packers began to pass.
LaFleur visited Rodgers in California a second time in 2021 before Rodgers acquiesced to playing for the Packers last season.
“I spent the majority of my offseason, I would say, trying to defuse the situation as best as we could,” LaFleur says. That meant many conversations with Rodgers, and many more with Murphy, Gutekunst and Ball, trying to move both sides closer to middle ground.
The affection Rodgers has for his head coach is evident in the way he makes fun of him publicly. While boarding the team plane to Minneapolis, he wore a shirt with LaFleur’s likeness that read, “OUR COACH IS HOTTER THAN YOURS.”
He frequently jokes about LaFleur’s lush eyebrows. “It’s really a compliment,” Rodgers says. “He has some really finely kept eyebrows.”
Rodgers accuses LaFleur of having his wife, BreAnne, manicure those brows, which are dark, not too bushy and not too sparse. The lines could have been made with a ruler. They are squared on the edges, like elongated rectangles.
“Everybody knows coaches are almost inept about everyday activities like dressing themselves, doing laundry or self-grooming,” Rodgers says. “So it became a joke about how thankful he must be to have Bre do his eyebrows every single week so he looks his best on game day.”
LaFleur claims he is the only one who touches his eyebrows.
On ESPN’s Jan. 3 Manningcast for “Monday Night Football,” Rodgers joked about his coach’s eyebrows and hair and also pointed out his game-day attire has included Jordans, lululemon pants and a quarter-zip sweater. What Rodgers didn’t know was that LaFleur was listening to the broadcast while game-planning. Lafleur started a text conversation with Rodgers during his telecast and nearly responded by Facetiming him on live television.
LaFleur’s retorts usually aren’t for public consumption. When Rodgers used the hashtag “boycottLafleursBrows” on Twitter, LaFleur responded with a text: “Boycott COVID toe.”
COVID toe is a condition in which toes swell and turn blue or purple. During an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show,” Rodgers kiddingly said his toe issue, later revealed to be a fracture, was COVID toe.
This was in the wake of Rodgers’ positive test for COVID-19. At the time, he had been in a firestorm because he was unvaccinated but previously told the media he was “immunized” after undergoing a treatment to heighten his immunity. LaFleur said almost nothing publicly about the controversy during the season, sidestepping questions. But privately, he extended a hand.
“I told him I’m here for him and I support him,” LaFleur says. “I know he was taking a lot of heat. Be it right, wrong or indifferent, I look at it a little different from some people regarding the whole situation. … It’s like religion and politics. People have to make the best decision for themselves. The majority of us are vaxed, coaches, players. But we were getting a lot of positive cases. We’ve seen that throughout society, throughout this locker room. So whether you were vaxed or unvaxed, it doesn’t shield you from it. … I told him, ‘Hey, from my standpoint, you have to do what you think is right for your body.’”
Rodgers appreciated his coach’s stance, even if it wasn’t verbalized at a podium.
“Matty I’m sure knew this was a possibility,” Rodgers says of the controversy. “He was supportive from the start.”
When LaFleur was a kid, family members called him “Matty.” Three of his childhood friends still call him that. And Rodgers.
No one else.
LaFleur’s beginnings have been more successful than the beginnings of his Packers predecessor, who also inherited a Hall of Fame quarterback. And these days, you can watch the Packers practice on the street called Mike McCarthy Way.
Already, LaFleur has more 13-win seasons in three years than Mike Holmgren had in 17. Holmgren is in the Packers Hall of Fame and soon could be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
LaFleur’s winning percentage of .796 is better than the winning percentages of Curly Lambeau and Vince Lombardi. In fact, it’s the best in NFL history.
What Lambeau, Lombardi, McCarthy and Holmgren have that LaFleur does not are championships. Where LaFleur calls home, there are championships and there are failures and not much between.
There should be many more opportunities for the 42-year-old LaFleur, with or without the 38-year-old Rodgers.
LaFleur has one year remaining on his initial Packers contract, and the team holds another option year. All logic points to the Packers signing him to an extension in the coming months that would lock him into Green Bay for years and make him one of the highest-paid coaches in the NFL.
As LaFleur transitions from the 2021 season to the beyond, there are wounds to heal, transitions to navigate and redemption to be won.
“You have to learn from every situation you are in,” LaFleur says. “Many times, the lessons you learn from defeats are most impactful than what you learn from when you succeed.”
Trust from the locker room will be crucial as he tries to fill the crater in his offense left by the trade of Adams, whose desire was to play for the Raiders. LaFleur could not prevent the departure of the player he has called football’s best wide receiver.
“Davante knows how I feel about him,” LaFleur says. “He was a joy to coach, not only a great player but a great person, a great competitor and leader on our football team. Like I told him, the beauty of this game is winning is a hell of a lot of fun, but it’s about the relationships you make. And he’s a guy I have a special place in my heart for. I’ll always wish him well.”
LaFleur acknowledges his offense won’t look the same without Adams, though the foundation will remain. And the return of Rodgers — whose history suggests he will bring out the best in other receivers — looks even more significant now than Adams is a Raider.
“Certainly, there are adjustments,” LaFleur says. “But we’ve got a pretty good quarterback that can help other guys. What’s so exciting about this league is when there is a situation like this, it seems to me guys will always step up and assume the role. Who that will be, I don’t know yet.”
Playbook alterations were coming anyway. LaFleur’s coaching staff has changed more than in any year since he was named head coach, with four additions and five promotions.
LaFleur began considering one of his new assistants more than a year ago when he asked Rodgers about Tom Clements, who had been an assistant with the Packers for 11 years of Rodgers’ career before LaFleur’s arrival. LaFleur was intrigued by him because of Rodgers’ praise. If there was a vacancy on his staff, LaFleur wanted to be prepared.
He asked Rodgers about him again this January. Then when passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Luke Getsy resigned to become offensive coordinator of the Bears, LaFleur told Rodgers he wanted to talk to Clements. Rodgers asked if he could speak with Clements first, and he subsequently began the recruiting process. When LaFleur was in Los Angeles for the NFL Honors, he met Clements, who lives in the area. They had lunch al fresco and talked about how Clements could help the Packers.
Hiring Clements was a bow to Rodgers, but like a lot of what LaFleur has done, it was more than that.
“I thought he would be great for everybody in that room, all our quarterbacks,” LaFleur says. “We just named a quarterback assistant, Connor Lewis. I thought (Clements would) be great for him. And quite frankly, I thought he’d be great for myself as well. He has such a calm, cool demeanor that I think anybody would gravitate towards him.”
Clements is another spoke in the Packers wheel.
At the hub is LaFleur.
https://theathletic.com/3204739/2022/03/24/matt-lafleurs-ability-to-build-trust-starting-with-aaron-rodgers-is-key-to-the-packers-success/
Don Pompei wrote: