Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur was rewarded with a contract extension despite the team's playoff collapse to the heated rival Chicago Bears on Wild Card Weekend. Many are wondering whether LaFleur still deserves to be in charge in Titletown, including Fox Sports personality Colin Cowherd.
It's clear that LaFleur recognizes the urgency to rally from that postseason embarrassment. The new contract gives him plenty of runway, yet as training camp has opened, he's emphasized the need for the team, and particularly the Jordan Love-led offense, to have sharper execution between plays.
The finer details often separate the good teams from the great ones. LaFleur has had a lot of success to date in Green Bay. Nevertheless, a long-standing implication about the Packers' operation under LaFleur persists.
Packers can't shake their label as a finesse team under Matt LaFleur
Colin Cowherd came out firing against Matt LaFleur during a recent segment, in tandem with former Packers beat writer Ty Dunne. Here's the meat of the latter's scathing remarks:
"You just see a lack of will. A lack of toughness. [...] You punch the Packers in the mouth under Matt LaFleur, they're not gonna punch back. [...] They need a killer instinct."
Cowherd then proceeds to explain how the NFC North features two far more aggressive, fiery coaches in the Chicago Bears' Ben Johnson and the Detroit Lions' Dan Campbell. Cowherd also points out how the Pack are 4-8 against the 49ers and Lions, widely regarded as two of the most physical teams in the conference.
But this is the mic-drop comment that will get Cheesehead fans fired up, regarding LaFleur's lack of response to Johnson's viral call-out of how much he enjoyed beating MLF twice a year:
"It kind of felt soft as brie cheese in a town that loves aged cheddar. It's a real thing. It's kind of being amplified. They feel a little soft. Chicago and Detroit are hyper-aggressive. They're in the same division."
Why the 'soft' perception of LaFleur and the Packers doesn't quite match reality
It's funny how bottom-line results drive so much of the perception about narrative in any field. Pro football just happens to be on such a grand public stage. But the closer you look at the assertions cast about by Dunne and LaFleur, the less they hold up under scrutiny.
Let's be honest. If Brandon McManus doesn't miss two field goals and an extra point, Green Bay advances to the Divisional Round. Bears quarterback Caleb Williams made multiple miraculous plays to even keep Chicago within striking distance amid McManus' historic choke job.
Another thing: LaFleur has had the offense humming ever since he took over the job. He rode out Love's growing pains and the impossible pressure of being Aaron Rodgers' successor, and it's working out beautifully.
The 2026 season will only be Love's fourth as a full-time starter. His Lions counterpart, Jared Goff, had two full seasons of runway and bad teams before the Lions broke through. Goff threw three interceptions in his last playoff start, a home loss as the No. 1 seed. Detroit didn't make the postseason this past year.
In other words, Goff has a lot more emotional scar tissue than Love from heartbreaking losses of the past that were very much on him.
PS: Do Love or LaFleur control the Packers' defense? No? Does they control losing an elite superstar like Micah Parsons to major injury? No? Those two factors might have something to do with why Green Bay hasn't gotten over the hump during the Love-LaFleur era.
Love turns only 28 in November. LaFleur is 46. These guys aren't going anywhere for a long time. We sure we want to rush to label them as "soft" and incapable of matching up with the rest of their division?
As for Cowherd commending the aggressive tactics of Campbell and Johnson, well, let's look at that point for a second.
Campbell's uber-aggressive approach cost Detroit a legit chance to go to Super Bowl LVIII when they blew a 17-point lead in the NFC Championship Game. After Johnson's breakthrough win over the Pack, when all the chips were down, he didn't go for a winning 2-point conversion versus the Rams in the Divisional Round late in the fourth quarter. Williams' overtime interception sent Los Angeles to Seattle for the NFC title game.
The only way out for LaFleur is through
This is the perfect opportunity for the allegedly stoic (to borrow Cowherd's term) Matt LaFleur to channel this critique into something productive. I mean, if you ask me, no coach on the planet is more stoic on the sidelines than Ben Johnson, but I digress.
LaFleur isn't some milquetoast out there to me. He's fired up when the Packers score a touchdown. He can get quite animated with an officiating crew. He clearly has his offense prepared and ready to roll regardless of the circumstances. That's how a backup QB like Malik Willis, with his career on life support, plays so well in Love's stead and becomes the Miami Dolphins' new starter this year.
The head coach-quarterback combo is the most important in the NFL. Campbell's more gregarious personality and Goff's redemptive story arc were endearing in Detroit, yet the pressure on them has never been higher. Goff is a pocket-passing statue who took a career-high 38 sacks in 2025, and the Lions' offensive line is still very much a question mark, as is their entire defense.
Meanwhile, Williams is still a wildly scattershot passer by NFL accuracy standards. A Year 2 leap in Johnson's system is feasible, but if he can't deliver the ball on-target, that's a problem.
The Bears rode a wave of outrageous (good) fortune with six fourth-quarter comebacks among their 11 regular-season wins. They led the NFL with a plus-22 turnover margin, which is a notoriously unstable year-over-year statistic.
Cowherd's criticism reflects a lot of outside sentiment about the Packers. It seems wildly overblown given that LaFleur's apparent softness has translated to six playoff berths in seven years. Now, it's all about getting over the hump. Maybe this is just the extra push the Pack and their head honcho need to explode past that threshold.
Slow, steady and less flashy may very well have Love and LaFleur reigning supreme in the NFC North when all is said and done this season. And if Parsons is back healthy and Trey Smack can be an upgrade over McManus in the kicking game, perhaps the playoff results will follow and the "soft" criticism will, well, soften.
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