Matt LaFleur outcoaches friend Sean McVay on the big stage

Matt LaFleur said the gloves were coming off leading up to Saturday’s matchup between the Green Bay Packers and Los Angeles Rams. For the first time as a head coach, LaFleur coached against his close friend and former mentor Sean McVay. The day after a 32-18 win over his confidant, LaFleur has earned the right to be considered one of the best coaches in the NFL, possibly overtaking McVay in the process.

When the Packers hired LaFleur in January of 2019, he was compared to McVay and Kyle Shanahan: two successful young coaches he had worked with or for in the past.

In 2017, LaFleur was the offensive coordinator under McVay in Los Angeles. It was McVay’s first season as the head coach, and the Rams finished 11-5 and were ranked 10th in total offense. They went on to win the NFC West but later lost to the Atlanta Falcons in the wild-card round of the playoffs.

The year prior, in 2016, LaFleur was the quarterbacks’ coach in Atlanta. He worked under Shanahan, who was the offensive coordinator for the second-ranked offense in the league. That same year, quarterback Matt Ryan won his one and only MVP award.

The history of LaFleur, McVay, and Shanahan goes back even further. All three can be traced back to their days with the Washington Football Team, where they worked on the same staff. No one knew that one day they would all become successful head coaches.

LaFleur was the last of the three to get an NFL head-coaching gig. McVay and Shanahan were both named head coaches in 2017, while LaFleur had to wait two more years until he got his chance.

After two years as the head coach in Green Bay, no one has had more success in franchise history. In his first year, he set the record for most wins (13) as a first-year head coach for the Packers. Now his combined record for the regular season and playoffs is 28-7, and he’s headed to the NFC Championship Game for the second straight year. Only six other coaches in NFL history have been to the conference championship in their first two seasons.

Last year, LaFleur was stopped one game short of the Super Bowl by Shanahan and the San Francisco 49ers. This year, he’s one game short of the Super Bowl again, but this time, it was bittersweet as he went through McVay to get there.

“We still talk pretty regularly,” said LaFleur earlier this week. “I don’t know how much I’ll talk to him this week. That’s one of my closest friends in life. He’s like a brother to me…but the gloves will be off on Saturday.”

The gloves did come off, and LaFleur emerged the victor. He called a beautiful game and undoubtedly outcoached McVay, his former teacher.

If you ask McVay, he isn’t surprised by LaFleur’s success.

“I think it’s just when Matt got the opportunity to go there, the last thing I was surprised by was the success that he had,” stated McVay. “He’s a great coach. He’s a great friend of mine. You’re so happy to see that success.”

When the Packers hired LaFleur, everyone believed they had found their next Shanahan or McVay. However, after two years, did they actually find the best of the three? It’s not as crazy as it might sound.

LaFleur has retooled Green Bay’s offense into one of the best in the NFL. He’s also reinvigorated Aaron Rodgers into MVP form.

Saturday night, he went toe to toe with McVay and delivered the knockout blow in the fourth quarter with a designed play-action that appeared to mirror earlier run calls. Rodgers pulled the ball from the gut of Aaron Jones and threw a perfect pass to wide receiver Allen Lazard, who caught the pass in stride for a 58-yard touchdown. It was a perfectly set up play design by LaFleur.

When the Packers took a 14-point lead with seven minutes remaining in the game, it was the passing of the torch. It was also clear LaFleur had got the better of his former boss.

While LaFleur may have surpassed McVay, he’s still waiting to outduel Shanahan on a stage like the divisional round. Green Bay ran through a battered 49ers team 34-17 in week 9, but that hardly made up for the beating San Francisco served in last year’s NFC Championship Game. Without topping Shanahan in the postseason, LaFleur is no lower than second on the Shanahan-LaFleur-McVay totem pole.

However, even if he hasn’t bested Shanahan on the big stage, LaFleur is still one of the best head coaches in the NFL, and he got the better of many other great coaches, including Shanahan, on his way to a 13-3 record in 2020. For those reasons, he should be at the forefront of the conversation for Coach of the Year.

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