New Packers President's Comments Put Some Heat on Matt LaFleur Ahead of 2025 Season

A new era is upon the Green Bay Packers. Mark Murphy, the Packers' president and CEO since 2007, turns 70 on July 13, which by franchise bylaws, means he must retire. Less than two weeks after his birthday, he will be succeeded by Green Bay COO and general counsel Ed Policy, who spoke with reporters about his upcoming stewardship of the franchise.

A hot topic of conversation coming off of that media session: the futures of coach Matt LaFleur and general manager Brian Gutekunst. Both have two years remaining on their contracts, and Policy was pretty frank about the situation: He does not want anyone entering a lame duck year, but is not ready to offer either an extension ahead of the 2025 season.

"I'm generally opposed—I'd never say never—[but] I'm generally opposed to a coach or GM going into the last year of their contract," Policy said, per ESPN. "That creates a lot of issues. I think normally you have a pretty good idea of where that relationship is going when you have two years left—not always, but normally.

"So I think generally speaking I would avoid lame-duck status. It's oftentimes difficult on everybody involved. But there are certain situations that probably call for it, so I would not say never."

The Packers have continued to be one of the NFL's most consistent franchises under LaFleur and Gutekunst, but have failed to break through for a Super Bowl appearance since the victory in 2011 with Mike McCarthy at the helm. Late in Aaron Rodgers's tenure as Green Bay quarterback, LaFleur lost back-to-back NFC championship games in 2020 and '21.

With a win percentage of .670, LaFleur has the third-best career mark among active NFL coaches, behind only Nick Sirianni and Jim Harbaugh. By just about any metric outside of Super Bowl wins, he is one of the league's top coaches. And yet, without committing to an extenson ahead of '25, Policy puts some pressure on LaFleur to make the upcoming season count.

Policy laid out what he looks for in both a head coach and general manager when discussing both LaFleur and Gutekunst, whom he called "exceptional people doing an exceptional job" along with vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball.

“With head coaches, it starts with wins and losses, but that’s a little too simple of an answer for this,” Policy said per The Athletic. “It can’t end with that. At the end of the day, we are here to win football games, so it does start with that. But coaches are fundamentally teachers, I think. They develop people, so you evaluate them on how they’re developing people. First, with the players, are they developing players individually? Are players getting better? … And then, are they improving as a team? What’s the locker room culture like? Is it cohesive? And is it one team or is it a bunch of individuals?

On the relationship between LaFleur and Gutekunst:

“Are they aligned? Are they communicating? That will be a very important thing to evaluate both of them on,” Policy added. “With the GM, again, it’s always going to be, are they performing and meeting their goals? Is their behavior and their conduct really aligned with our culture and our values? And then just, are their draft picks and their free agents—it probably takes a little while to determine this, it probably takes at least three years or so to really figure this out—but are they building a winning roster? Are they bringing in the right kind of people for our system and for the coach and the right kind of character people?”

The most likely outcome is both LaFleur and Gutekunst retaining their jobs and landing new contracts after the 2025–26 season, but Policy's comments certainly frame just how important the upcoming season will be in Green Bay.