How Will Matt LaFleur's 4th Season Compare to Previous Packers Coaches?

This season will be Matt LaFleur’s fourth as head coach of the Green Bay Packers. Lasting any amount of time as an NFL head coach is an accomplishment, but he joins a surprisingly large group in Green Bay, becoming the 12th coach in team history to hold the top job at least that long.

How did previous coaches fare in their fourth season at the helm? Here’s a quick recap. 

Curly Lambeau

Lambeau’s fourth season as head coach really depends on how you count. In 1919, he was technically not a coach, though his role as team captain was closer to what we understand in modern times as a coach than it sounds. If you count 1919, his fourth year as head coach would be 1922, when the Packers finished seventh out of 18 teams in the nascent NFL with a record of 4-3-3. They barely hung on to that seventh spot, too, edging out the Buffalo All-Americans by virtue of their three ties, though Buffalo won five games that year to Green Bay’s four.

If you count from 1920, Lambeau gets credit for the much better 7-2-1 record of the 1923 Packers as his fourth season.

If you want to get really crazy and count from the Packers’ first season in the American Pro Football Association, which would become the NFL, Lambeau’s fourth year as head coach is 1924, when the Packers finished 7-4 and won six straight at one point.

Gene Ronzani

Lambeau’s Packers foundered somewhat toward the end of his tenure, winning just five games total over his last two seasons. Gene Ronzani didn’t do much better. In his fourth season as the Packers’ head coach, he earned the dubious distinction of being the first Packers’ head coach to be fired mid-season. The Packers limped to a 2-9-1 record that year, second-worst in the NFL.

Lyle Blackbourn

Blackbourn ultimately succeeded Ronzani but, like his predecessor, he was unable to return the Packers to their Lambeau-era glory. His last season, 1957, was much like Ronzani’s. The Packers skidded to a 3-9 finish. It wasn’t as bad as Scooter McClean’s 1-10-1 season in 1958, but it was bad enough to get him shown the door.

Vince Lombardi

Lombardi, as you might be aware, brought better times to Green Bay, and his fourth season as the Packers’ head coach could be said to be the high water mark in franchise history. The 1962 Packers went 13-1, finished the season with the top scoring offense and top scoring defense, and capped off their year with a 16-7 win over Lombardi’s former team, the New York Giants, in the NFL Championship Game. What else can you ask for?

Dan Devine

Phil Bengston lasted three unremarkable years after Lombardi, giving way to Dan Devine. Devine, bettering his predecessor, lasted for four unremarkable years before retreating to the college game. In 1974, his final year in Green Bay, the Packers went 6-8 and made what could be the worst move in franchise history, surrendering a mountain of draft capital for John Hadl, then in the back half of the back nine of his career. It didn’t work out.

Bart Starr

Starr spent most of his first four years digging out of the hole that Devine had shoved the Packers into before he bolted for Notre Dame, winning four, five, and four games in 1975, 1976, and 1977, respectively.

In 1978, Starr’s fourth season, the Packers looked to be turning the corner. They went 8-7-1 and narrowly missed the playoffs, losing the division title to the Vikings on a tiebreaker. Starr didn’t ultimately get the Packers to the playoffs until 1982, the only time the Packers made the postseason in his tenure.

Forrest Gregg

Operating under the theory that they’d just hired the wrong Lombardi-era player to coach the team, the Packers replaced Starr with Forrest Gregg, who opened his time as the Packers’ head coach with back-to-back 8-8 seasons. Things seemed promising until they weren’t. The Packers went 4-12 in 1986 and in 1987, Gregg’s fourth year as head coach, they went 5-9-1. 

Lindy Infante

Succeeding Gregg, Lindy Infante seemed like he was the man to create some excitement in Green Bay. The 1989 Packers were exciting, if nothing else, and rode Don Majkowski’s hot hand to a 10-6 record. Unfortunately, that was as good as it got for Infante. Two years later, the Packers slid to a 4-12 record and new general manager Ron Wolf showed Infante the door.

Mike Holmgren

After three consecutive versions of “this is the guy that’s going to turn things around,” the Packers actually found a guy who could turn things around in Mike Holmgren. Though his Packers endured some growing pains, in year four things were humming along. The 1995 Packers went 11-5, Brett Favre won his first MVP, and the team carried a lead into the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship game against the eventual Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys. Short of Lombardi’s 1962 opus, this is probably the best year four performance by a head coach in Packers history.

Mike Sherman

While Holmgren was just gaining steam in his fourth year, Mike Sherman was looking at the beginning of the end — though he may not have known it. The 2003 Packers took a step back from their 12-4 performance the previous season but won the NFC North with a very respectable 10-6 record. After taking care of Holmgren and Matt Hasselbeck (who wanted the ball and was going to score) in the Wildcard Round, the Packers traveled to Philadelphia and gave up a shot at the NFC Championship game in part because of the infamous 4th-and-26 play. Sherman was done in Green Bay two years later.

Mike McCarthy

McCarthy’s fourth year as head coach isn’t the best on this list, but it might be the most interesting. His fourth year in Green Bay was 2009, perhaps better known as the year it became clear that the Brett Favre to Aaron Rodgers transition was going to be just fine.

That year the Packers went 11-5 in large part because of Rodgers’ great year. Ultimately, the Packers lost to the Cardinals in a crazy overtime shooutout, but year four of the McCarthy era was a sign of great things to come.

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