The Green Bay Packers are about to have some difficult conversations after allowing a 15-point lead to evaporate in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s 31-27 loss to the Chicago Bears. One of the biggest decisions that new president Ed Policy will have to make is on the job status of head coach Matt LaFleur.
Whenever a head coach is on the hot seat, the first question is who that team will get to replace him. But if the Packers decide to fire LaFleur, it could come with excellent timing, as John Harbaugh is currently looking for a job.
Hiring Harbaugh appeared to be a pipe dream just a couple of weeks ago, but it could become a reality after the Baltimore Ravens fired him on Tuesday. The speculation will only continue to ramp up until Policy decides on a path to take, and the flames on LaFleur’s hot seat may have gotten hotter after a report by ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Sunday morning.
“Notice how we said (this decision) belongs to the Packers, president Ed Policy,” Schefter said during an appearance on ESPN’s NFL Countdown pregame show Sunday morning. “Well, the former president back in the day was a man by the name of Bob Harlan. Bob Harlan’s son, Brian, represents John Harbaugh. John Harbaugh is a Midwestern guy who has a home in the Upper Peninsula, and a lot of people around the league have been wondering if the Packers decide to go in a different direction, if all of a sudden, the Green Bay Packers might vault to the top of John Harbaugh’s list as the top available choice for him.”
Schefter added that if the Packers were to fire LaFleur, he would be one of the top available coaches on the market. But his connection of Harbaugh to the front office may make the risk worth the reward.
John Harbaugh Will Be the Packers’ Top Target If Matt LaFleur Is Fired
LaFleur has been successful since joining the Packers in 2019, posting a record of 76-40-1. With two trips to the NFC Championship Game and a 2021 season where Green Bay was the conference's No. 1 seed in the playoffs on his resume, it’s hard to envision another coach that could be a replacement until Harbaugh became available.
Harbaugh’s 180 wins are third among active coaches, trailing Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs (279), Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers (193), and Sean Payton of the Denver Broncos (184). He is also 14th all-time in NFL history and won a Super Bowl with the Ravens in 2012. While LaFleur has had one season with double-digit wins in the past four seasons, Harbaugh has posted 10 or more wins in six of his past eight seasons, including a 12-5 record in 2024 and a trip to the AFC Championship game in 2023.
Like LaFleur, Harbaugh’s firing wasn’t because he suddenly became a bad coach. It was just a matter of things running their course after 18 seasons in Baltimore. It’s the type of coach that teams will fall over themselves for, as the Cleveland Browns, Miami Dolphins, New York Giants, and Atlanta Falcons have all reached out to request interviews since he was fired. The ultimate decision-maker that he is, though, Harbaugh smartly waited to see if anything changed over Wild Card weekend.
After Saturday night, there’s a great chance that the Packers could be added to that list, and his connections to Policy could make it more than possible that he winds up in Green Bay.