Matt LaFleur Has Been Among Best Rookie Coaches in NFL History

One year ago today, the Green Bay Packers introduced Matt LaFleur as their 15th head coach and made him the new, young face of a franchise that had grown stale under the previous regime after nearly a decade.

Back then, expectations were mixed about whether he could bring the Packers back to the playoffs right away, but LaFleur has managed to do all that and more in his first year on the job with a shot at further growing his legacy when he leads the Packers (13-3) into Sunday night’s showdown against the Seattle Seahawks (11-5) in the NFC divisional round at Lambeau Field.

Only two rookie coaches in NFL history finished their debut regular seasons with better records than LaFleur with Jim Caldwell and George Seifert each going 14-2 with their respective teams.

Caldwell took the reins from Tony Dungy and took the Indianapolis Colts to the Super Bowl for the second time in four years in his first season in 2009, though they lost 31-17 to the New Orleans Saints. Seifert accomplished the same feat without the season-ending loss, winning the Super Bowl XXIV title in glorious fashion, 55-10, over the Denver Broncos.

Other first-year coaches have matched LaFleur’s 13 wins, including Jim Harbaugh with the 49ers, but the total number can be counted on one hand. What truly sets apart the best NFL rookie head coaches from the rest of the pack, though, is how much success they achieve in the postseason.

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Is Matt LaFleur a Coach of the Year Candidate?

As far as candidacy is concerned, LaFleur is certainly in the running after Chicago’s Matt Nagy took home the award last year for leading the Bears back to the playoffs with a 12-4 record. Nagy’s first team won seven more games than the previous year, same as LaFleur’s team, and was knocked out in the wild-card round against the Philadelphia Eagles.

The ground is much sturdier for LaFleur after earning a bye and guaranteeing home turf for their first game, but the field of competition is also much stronger this season. John Harbaugh’s decision to trade Joe Flacco away from Baltimore and give the keys to Lamar Jackson yielded the best season out of any team in the NFL this year. There is also a strong case for Kyle Shanahan — who moped the floor with LaFleur, his longtime friend, and the Packers earlier this season — with the 49ers coming into the playoffs as the top dog in the NFC.

Veteran contenders, such as Sean Payton and Bill Belichick, were likely eliminated from the conversation with their teams in the wild-card rounds. The Patriots ended on especially sour notes with a home loss to the Miami Dolphins to end the season before losing again at home to bottom-seeded Tennessee in last week’s AFC wild-card game.

When compared with Nagy last season, LaFleur is also chasing a different standard. The Packers made the playoffs in nine of 13 seasons under predecessor Mike McCarthy, whereas the Bears have been regular outcasts for the majority of the current millennium. He also inherited one of the game’s best quarterbacks in Aaron Rodgers and had the benefit of his general manager swiping some more top-shelf talent during the offseason.

Not to discredit the work LaFleur has done. As the words of his players reinforce, he has struck a nice balance between being a players’ coach and a coach that demands high expectations on the field. He also hasn’t allowed emotion to get the better of him in some of the team’s rougher moments this season, keeping a consistent tone for the Packers.

For now anyway, it’s probably best to table any awards discussion until after all the dust settles.

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