

General Background / Philosophy

LaFleur's Coaching History ​

Groomed Under the Game's Brightest Young Minds... but yet to do it well on his own

If asked to list the NFL's brightest offensive coaches, Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay would immediately come to most minds. In fact, in 2016 and '17, both Shanahan's Falcons and McVay's Rams respectively topped the league in total points. New Packers HC Matt LaFleur's fingerprints are all over both league-pacing attacks.

In fact, since joining the NFL Ranks in 2008 at a ripe 29 years old, LaFleur has only known Shanahan and McVay offenses. The new Packers HC began his NFL journey as Shanahan's Offensive Quality Control coach with the Texans, and Kyle was so impressed with LaFleur's work that he carried him along to his next gig in Washington, this time promoting LaFleur to QBs coach. The pair worked together for six more total seasons in these respective roles, which included four years with the Redskins, followed by two more in Atlanta.

LaFleur's track record during this time is staggering. As the QBs coach, LaFleur played a massive role in Robert Griffin's creative usage and 2012 Rookie of the Year campaign, in which RGIII established Redskins rookie records in pass completions (258), passing yards (3,200), passing touchdowns (20) and rushing yards by a quarterback (815).

LaFleur was also Matt Ryan's QBs coach during Ryan's career-best, MVP season (4,944 yards, 38 touchdowns, and 117.1 quarterback rating). The coach also drafted and groomed Kirk Cousins, and, despite working with Rex Grossman and a washed up Donovan McNabb in his other seasons, has only seen one attack tally below 4,000 total passing yards (Griffin's ROY season, conveniently enough).

Unsurprisingly, Shanahan has nothing but praise for LaFleur. When asked last offseason if LaFleur was ready to call his own plays as he transitioned to the Rams' OC, Shanahan replied: "Yeah, he's been ready for a while.

"They’re getting a hell of a coach," Shanahan continued. "Matt understands the game. He played college quarterback. He knows a lot about that position. He knows the run game, he knows the pass game, he knows how to tie them together."

We'll dive into this "tying together the pass and run games" more below, as this is the backbone for Shannahan, McVay, and now LaFleur's systems. This is what has made Todd Gurley, and Devonta Freeman the year prior, such indefensible monsters.

Though McVay was the primary play-caller during their 2017 season together, LaFleur was reportedly integral in game-planning and often relied upon in key situations. Just like Shanahan, McVay has nothing but praise for his former OC.

“I think he’ll be great,” McVay said of LaFleur. “Matt is a great coach. It is a big loss for us... Matt is a great teacher, a great leader, a great motivator. I think he sees the game from the quarterback’s standpoint just from his history of playing... He’ll do an excellent job putting guys in the right spot." ​

All the "grooming" in the world can't guarantee independent success, though. Whether or not LaFleur will live up to his coaching lineage remains a major question mark.

LaFleur's one-year stint with the Titans marked his first as an independent play-caller, and was largely underwhelming. Granted, LaFleur was dealt a less-than-ideal hand, with the carnage beginning right off the bat. Within the first half of Week One's record-length contest with the Dolphins:

-Marcus Mariota suffered an elbow injury that forced him out of many contests and had him unable to throw 15+ yards in many which he played.

-Pro-Bowl TE Delanie Walker was lost for the year with a nasty dislocated ankle -The offensive line lost two key starters and became largely a rotational unit

Ultimately, the offense ranked 27th in total scoring (19.4 per game) and 29th in passing (pathetic 3255 yards), but also finished an encouraging 7th in total rushing (2023 yards) thanks to an epic late-season surge from Derrick Henry.

As we dive into below, LaFleur's system is supposed to be highly vertical. So when Mariota, "literally could not throw more than 15 yards... it presents a whole new set of challenges and totally changes your game plan... you have to navigate around that." Unsurprisingly then, the Titans finished with the fewest deep-ball attempts and 30th in completions of 20+ yards.

This isn't all written as a LaFleur hall-pass or apology. He certainly made plenty of play-calling blunders in his debut.

Still, negatively overreacting to LaFleur's 2018 would also be ill-advised, at least without recognizing these deficiencies. Clearly, the Packers are not, as siding with LaFleur over more established commodities suggests they fully believe in his playcalling upside. If he and Aaron Rodgers click, some true magic could unfold with the following scheme:





Scheme / System

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Merging the Run and Pass Games

LaFleur's offense centers around one goal: merging the running and passing games so the attack is a well-oiled, unpredictable machine.

LaFleur said as much in his Packers introductory press-conference, noting:

"Certainly we're going to have a foundation in place of how we run our system. I think it's a system that's really predicated on building the run game with the pass game. We like to have plays, we like to say plays that start off looking the same but are different, plays that play off of plays. It lessens the predictability of what you're trying to do, and it keeps a defense more off-balance.

If nothing else, label LaFleur consistent. When describing the base of his Rams attack, LaFleur cited “a strong marriage with our running game and our passing game... The idea is to have a balanced attack and keep a defense guessing.” He expressed a near-identical sentiment when first asked to describe his offense with the Titans:

"First of all, it really all starts with our run game and having plays that play off our run game..to a defense it might look like, ‘Oh, here comes another run,’ and it’s a play-action pass off that run or whatnot."

So... expect a marriage of the run and passing games.

But how is this accomplished? Step One...

Establishing the Run: ​

Just like a real life partnership, a successful "marriage" between the run and pass games couldn't be achieved without commitment and production from both "parties."

As such, whether alongside Shanahan, McVay, or on his own, LaFleur's offenses have always been run-heavy with a Zone Blocking base. Over the past three seasons:

2016 - Falcons: 43% run-plays (11th most), 1928 Ru. YDs (5th), 20 TDs (3rd)

2017 - Rams: 45% run-plays (10th most), 1953 Ru. yds, (8th), 17 TDs (5th)

2018 - Titans: 48% run plays (2nd most), 2023 Ru. yds (7th), 15 TDs (11th)

In stark contrast, over that same span, Green Bay has ranked 31st (35.8%), 25th (38.7%), and 32nd (32.5%) in Run Play percentage. Rodgers has never benefited from a "balanced" attack and the unpredictability that this can create. Though Rodgers' total volume may decrease, the quality of these looks could increase dramatically.

Beyond the sheer quantity of run-plays, LaFleur utilizes a variety of creative run formations and concepts. Whether knifing through defenses with the inside and outside zone games, or stretching them wide with jet sweeps and end arounds, his run game is relentless and attacks from every angle.

With this run-game "spine" in place, LaFleur gets defenses selling out, consequently opening up serious space for misdirection and chunk YAC plays.

Chiefly, he utilizes two core staples: play-action passing and the screen game --- oftentimes together on the same play (as seen in the two clips below):

