The Green Bay Packers made one of the more surprising hires of the offseason back in January, electing to go with the inexperienced Matt LaFleur as their new head coach.
LaFleur is a disciple of Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay, so there are some high hopes for LaFleur to bring McVay's style of offensive genius to Green Bay.
Chicago Bears head coach Matt Nagy, entering his second year at the helm, knows that facing LaFleur will be a challenge:
“There won't be anything other than the preseason and we all know how that goes,” Nagy said, according to Matt Eurich of 247 Sports. “So, that's going to be a challenge for us, really more so for our defensive coaches because of not really exactly knowing what Matt has done or what he's going to do. Then on the other end on offense and for our offensive coaches with coach Pettine being there and playing a couple of games against them. But there's always changes. So that's part of the chess match of seeing what you're going to get. To me, it's not about that, it's more about how do you adapt within the game. It's how do you adjust, it's about adjustments. Whoever adjusts better—that's not just our game, that's every game in the NFL—always early in the season.”
LaFleur spent the 2018 campaign with the Tennessee Titans, serving as the team's offensive coordinator. In 2017, however, LaFleur worked under McVay in Los Angeles.
The Packers have missed the playoffs each of the last two years, so they are definitely in need of a fresh mind as they try to catch up to the Bears in the NFC North.