Can Packers’ Coach Matt LaFleur Buck The Trend And Rebound From Playoff Disaster?

Back in 2003, when Green Bay Packers coach Mike Sherman lost his nerve and a fourth-and-26 play later doomed his team, Sherman also lost the locker room.

Things were never the same for Mike McCarthy, either, after Green Bay blew a 19-7 lead in the final 3 minutes against Seattle and lost the 2014 NFC Championship Game in Seattle.

If the Packers and current head coach Matt LaFleur choose to stay married for an eighth season, Green Bay’s brass must ask themselves if LaFleur will ever gain the full trust of the locker room again.

The Packers finished the season on a five-game losing streak, their longest in 17 years. Green Bay’s disturbing pattern for blowing leads reached new heights in 2025.

The Packers had a 99% chance to defeat Cleveland in Week 3 with 3 minutes left, and a 99% chance to defeat Chicago with 2 minutes left in their Week 16 contest. Green Bay’s odds of defeating the Bears in its Wild Game were at 96% with 5 minutes left.

The odds of Green Bay going 0-3 in those contests was 1-in-250,000, yet that’s exactly what the Packers did.

Green Bay also blew a 13-point lead to Dallas and settled for a tie, and squandered a nine-point second half lead to Denver.

After Green Bay’s playoff collapse to Chicago, linebacker Quay Walker — who’s likely to leave in free agency — gave perhaps the most damning review of the current administration.

“As I want to sit right here and say we should have won the game, we didn’t execute and that’s been a problem for us,” Walker said. “Honestly just finishing games. Putting guys away.

“Even before I got here, I feel like this always been a part of this organization when it comes down to big games, like finishing games. Nobody care what you did in the first half. It just comes down to when the fourth quarter hits double zeros or whatever the case may be, do we have more points than them? And that hasn’t been the case at all.”

Running back Josh Jacobs was just as perturbed.

“We were up damn-near 20 points,” Jacobs said. “It’s no way you should lose games in this league when you’re up that much.”

Safety Javon Bullard agreed.

“When we got somebody down, we gotta put them away,” Bullard said. “That (expletive), it’s starting to get damn-near embarrassing. We can’t do (expletive) like that and expect to win these big games going against these good-(expletive) teams. We’re going to have to get our (expletive) together.”

Green Bay’s last two coaches never could fully recover from devastating playoff losses.

Sherman didn’t actually lose his team because of the 4^th-and-26 in 2003. He lost it on the previous possession.

The Packers led the Eagles, 17-14, in the NFC Divisional playoffs and faced a fourth-and-two feet from the Eagles’ 41-yard line with 2 1/2 minutes remaining. Green Bay had its best offensive line since the Lombardi-era that year and running back Ahman Green ran for 1,883 yards that season.

Instead of allowing his powerful running game an opportunity to try and seal the deal, though, Sherman left things up to his shaky defense — which eventually failed.

Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb hit Freddie Mitchell for 28 yards on a fourth-and-26 play that set up a tying field goal from David Akers. Philadelphia then prevailed in overtime, 20-17.

From that moment on, things were never the same.

Sherman was stripped of his general manager duties after the 2004 season. And following a 4-12 campaign in 2005, he was fired.

“It wasn’t fourth-and-26 that ruined it for a lot of guys,” one player told me after Sherman was fired. “That (expletive) happens. It was not going for it on fourth down. It was Mike not having any faith in our ability to pick up a (expletive) yard.”

McCarthy didn’t lose the locker room the way Sherman once did. But things were also never the same for McCarthy after losing the 2014 NFC Championship Game at Seattle.

The Packers led, 16-0, at halftime, and held a 19-7 advantage with just more than 3 minutes left following Russell Wilson’s fourth interception of the game. At that point, the Packers’ chances of winning were 99.9%.

But Green Bay’s defense collapsed, Brandon Bostick fumbled away on onside kick and Tramon Williams eventually gave up the game-winning touchdown pass to Jermaine Kearse as the Packers fell, 28-22.

McCarthy was heavily criticized for his late-game management and his decision to kick a pair of early field goals when Green Bay reached Seattle’s 1-yard line.

McCarthy went 31-28-1 over the next 3 ¾ seasons, then was fired with four games remaining in the 2018 campaign.

Now, if LaFleur returns in 2026, he’ll have to prove he can rebound from a string of epic collapses — something Sherman and McCarthy could never do.