Matt LaFLeur looks to blaze his own path, rather than exist in the shadow of his previous coaching bosses.

When the Packers hired Matt LaFleur last winter, most the discussion focused around his roots, with branches on the Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay coaching trees. Which offensive system would he more closely follow? Would it look like the offense from Tennessee? Which philosophical approach would LaFleur take? Oh, and how many audibles will he let Rodgers call?

It turns out, we were asking the wrong questions, or at least not asking them in the correct way.

LaFleur certainly brought a philosophic approach to Green Bay, one he told the players from Day 1 would be different than the way they'd previously been asked to play. This, in itself, was part of the perspective though. He would be transparent with his players, ask for their input, empower them to be themselves and find ways to fit into the plan. The 2017 and '18 Rams seasons generated numerous stories of a similar approach from McVay with his players. It may seem intuitive, but such democracy in a football locker room has often been viewed as anathema by NFL coaches.

Green Bay's offense doesn't resemble the Rams team who plays almost exclusively with three receivers on the field. The Packers don't look much like the 49ers, who lean on the run game in the way LaFleur suggested this team might coming into the season. Right now, Aaron Rodgers throws more on early downs than almost any team in the league (currently in the top 5 in pass rate), while the 49ers are in the bottom five. When the Packers run, it often looks like what McVay or Shanahan might call and the same is true for when they throw it, but the way in which LaFleur approaches how and why he decides which to call looks much more like what the Patriots are doing than his coaching tree brethren.

At its core, the McVay system runs somewhat like the Mike McCarthy system in that there is a way of doing things, they're going to live that way, that philosophy, and they think they can beat you with it. The jet motion, the play-action, the eye candy and pre-snap adjustments make it difficult for defenses to key on what they're doing, so they can just be them. McCarthy's offense relied more on Aaron Rodgers wizardry, but that was more than a good enough platform on which to build an offense. Rodgers can do things no quarterback has ever been able to do.

As the McCarthy-Rodgers partnership waned, the Houdini acts became more and more David Blaine living in a cube with no food for a week. It was a feat to be sure, but it wasn't really magic and no one was having much fun.

While it's too early to say LaFleur is more adaptable than McVay or Shanahan, the latter having put on a coaching clinic all season, but his willingness to simply be what the team needs from week to week stands out. While the offense, its structure and verbiage, changed this offseason, the evolution has been somewhat slow. Much of what we saw in Week 1 were entry-level concepts for this team, much of it crossover from the bones of the system they'd run for 10 years.

We saw play-action at rates even below the sub-standard McCarthy era approach, a run game struggle and an offense that couldn't find its footing.

After the Bears game, LaFleur and Co. decided Davante Adams needed more touches and they needed to find more consistency with the run game. Against a stout Vikings defense, Adams put up 106 yards on seven catches, Aaron Jones rushed for 116 and a score on 23 carries, and the Packers raced out to a 21-0 lead. Green Bay won that game, one in which Rodgers threw for just 209 yards with a 6.1 per attempt average. That would have been unthinkable for a McCarthy team. They were who they needed to be to win.

LaFleur's "1-0 each week" approach may come off as cliche, and it is, but it also allows them to be malleable. Do whatever it takes to win this week.

There's no ego in it. There is no "winning our way." This is what has set the Patriots apart from the rest of the league for going on 20 years. Tom Brady will hand the ball off 40 times in a game if that gives the team the best chance to win. He'll throw it 50 times if that's the best option. They'll play man coverage and blitz you like crazy, or sit back in zone and force your quarterback to make throws.

This offense has looked just as comfortable with Rodgers throwing it 40+ times as handing it to Jones and Williams. As Adams rehabs a turf toe injury, the Packers pulled another page out of the Patriots’ playbook and turned their running backs into bona fide passing game nightmares. On the decisive play of the game on the road against the Chiefs in a difficult place to play, Rodgers said the consensus on the sideline was throw the ball to Jones. How many times have we seen the Patriots go to James White in those situations? Hell, they won a Super Bowl that way.

Rather than try to find a way to win with what they're doing, they're doing what they have to in order to find a win.

If that means letting Aaron Jones score four touchdowns because the Cowboys have no answers, that's what they'll do. While it seems easy to say "Yeah, Jones was rolling, why wouldn't they ride him?" one of McCarthy's biggest flaws was his failure to commit to the run game. McVay often falls in love with creative passing plays with Goff even though he's an inconsistent player and they have a stable of capable backs. Rodgers also just found a rhythm against the Eagles with his best game of the season. To pull an about-face on the road against a division leader and likely playoff team takes football courage.

There were questions to start the season about whether Rodgers would be capable of subverting his ego and playing a different way, one with less personal heroics and extrapolation outside the offense. So far, that was also the wrong question to be asking, or at least Rodgers proved it to be superfluous. What we should have been wondering was if LaFleur were smart enough, and devoid of ego enough, to believe he didn't need to win his way so long as they were winning. Through half a season, a 7-1 record, and a Rodgers MVP campaign, we have a resounding answer.

The offense he talks about so often, the idea of the Packers offense, rather than LaFleur's or Rodgers', is the one that gives Green Bay the best chance to go 1-0 this week.