Coach LaFleur Said a Lot – If You Read Between the Lines

Matt LaFleur, Green Bay’s young new head coach, is a breath of fresh air in so many ways. But when it comes to making (mandatory) appearances before the press, he’s like all the rest: he becomes a public relations man for the team and the NFL.

The closest thing there is to an exception in the NFL is Bill Belichick, who participates in press conferences no more than he is obliged to – just enough to keep the league off his back. The last time the public regularly got non-distilled comments by a head coach – other than the occasional out-of-control rant – was probably in 1999, Mike Ditka’s final year as a head coach.

On Thursday I finally got around to watching LaFleur’s presser following the Redskins game. In 18 minutes, the coach said a lot – but you have to read between the lines.

If you strip away the veneer of generalities and motivational optimism, I think you observed a really pissed off coach – and I don’t blame him. I felt LaFleur had his best game as a play caller – had the execution been there, this game would have been a blowout.

Green Bay came out sky-high in their first appearance before the home crowd since playing the Panthers on November 10. The Redskins are a woeful group. Due to two wins in a row, under the lead of QB Dwayne Haskins, a rookie starting only his fifth pro game, the Skins had worked their way up to a record of 3 and 9 – and they’re in a division whose cumulative record is 17 wins and 35 losses.

Sizzle to Fizzle

The Packers came out red hot, jumping out to a 14-0 lead by the end of the first quarter. The defense absolutely body-slammed the opposition, resulting in three consecutive three-and-outs in the initial going. Aaron Jones and Aaron Rodgers were on fire! Everything was clicking.

Then the team proceeded to fizzle out, adding only two more field goals and escaping with a 20-15 win. That Jekyll and Hyde trait (I want a trademark) emerged again.

The defense did quite well, giving up only 262 yards, and only 141 yards through the air. Nor can we complain about the Pack’s ground attack – Mr. Jones treated us to yet another virtuoso performance. The special teams even stepped up, providing Green Bay with its best showing of the season in that regard.

So when LaFleur met with the press on Monday, the focus was clearly on the Packers passing game: 195 yards gross, 167 net. Only one team in the league, the Redskins, is averaging under 195 net yards passing per game. With everything the Pack had going for it on this day, these are miserable numbers.

Let’s resort to some quick analysis. There are four primary factors that affect a team’s passing game: the quality of the opposing defense, of the receivers, of the pass protectors, and of the quarterback.

Pass Attack Factors

How about the Redskins’ pass defense? Washington ranks 11th in the league – pretty good, though they still yield an average of 225 net passing yards per game. The Packers finished 58 yards below that number.

When the O-line’s first stringers are out there, the Packers afford above-average pass protection. On Sunday, the Packers had their full complement on board, including Brian Bulaga. For the most part, Aaron Rodgers had sufficient time and relatively light pocket pressure. Despite decent pass protection, he was sacked four times and turned the ball over on a fumble.

Next to consider is the quality of the Packers’ receivers, a topic of much debate throughout the season. The consensus has emerged that the Packers’ wide receiver corps is well below average and in great need of help.

Even so, however, at this point in the season we’ve come to discover that Aaron Rodgers has a number of inviting targets to throw to – he’s not confined to just the wide receivers, and mostly to Davante Adams.

First off, there’s the group of four tight ends. Jimmy Graham, who finished with three catches on five throws for 49 yards, found open space several times on Sunday. Robert Tonyan and Mercedes Lewis each caught the only pass thrown their way, and Lewis was a blocking dynamo. Rookie Jase Sternberger got loose in the end zone for what should have been his first NFL catch, though he bungled it. Still, five grabs for 66 yards is a decent contribution by the tight end group.

Then there are the two primary running backs, both of whom are excellent, not average, receivers. On Sunday, it was Jones who had six out of seven completions, for a total of 58 yards. Week by week, he’s showing he can not only make hay out of the short throws, but he’s able to get open downfield as well. His moves are probably second only to Adams on this team.

As to the wideouts other than Adams, it’s no secret that Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Geronimo Allison have been enormous disappointments this season. Allen Lazard, however, has helped make up for these two – he looked good once again in getting open and making two catches against the Skins.

I don’t believe there were any drops on the day by Green Bay receivers.

The Packers are becoming a team with a balanced running and passing attack. By spreading passes around to its WRs, RBs, and TEs, this team has shown it can unleash an effective passing game. Both in watching the game in real time, and in viewing game film afterward, I saw that Green Bay had plenty of open receivers – it was execution that was lacking.

This brings us to the final, but undoubtedly most important, factor in any pass attack: the quality of one’s quarterback. Fortunately, I don’t need to make more enemies by pontificating on this – the head coach issued his own appraisals at his press conference on Monday. Though nice-guy LaFleur minced his words, it was clear what he was thinking and who he was talking about.

LaFleur’s Press Conference

The coach began by noting that his team should have scored a lot more than 20 points. LaFleur talked at some length on two of the failed deep passes that I previously described (here) – the first one went over Jones’s head and the second went over 6’7” Graham’s head. In each of these two big-play chances, LaFleur described the passes as “a hair off.” Uh, no, the two throws were not even close.

LaFleur went on to indicate the Packers should also have capitalized on an incomplete throw to Jamaal Williams, and that Allen Lazard was wide open on a play in which Rodgers instead took off running, only to be sacked.

LaFleur summed things up in this way:

“There was just a couple of plays that, looking back on it, there was more out there. Any time you score 20 points, especially with not capitalizing on some of that field position, you always know there was some more out there for you.”

Later on, the coach uttered this gobbledegook:

“It’s gonna start with the coaching – just making sure that we are super detailed so these guys understand what the expectations are, and exactly what they’re going to do, because I think the details separate you, and when I talk about all the plays that we left out there, I think not all of us were on our details.”

I don’t mean to ridicule Matt LaFleur. He’s simply trying to be as honest as he can be without singling out or demeaning individual players. But we all know who had the poor game against the Redskins.

Let’s hope that the player or players who LaFleur was referring to gets back “on their details” pronto, because we have two big games coming up in the next ten days – and the Bears and Vikings will be much more formidable opponents than were the Redskins.

Never one to simply curse the darkness, I have a partial solution in mind to the team’s shortcomings, but let’s first focus on the Bears game, which has become more intriguing – given that the two teams suddenly seem to be heading in opposite directions.