Our entire two-part series on Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur is available to paid subscribers.
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Four words define this franchise.
Four words have served as a north star for everyone at 1265 Lombardi Avenue for exactly three decades.
To understand the troubling state of these 2026 Green Bay Packers, first slip into a time machine and punch in July 17, 1996. Travel back to the day the team’s quarterback, Brett Favre, made a very clear, very bold statement fresh out of rehab in Topeka, Kansas for his addiction to Vicodin.
“This year,” Favre declared, it’s Super Bowl or Bust. If we don’t go to the Super Bowl, then it was a disappointing year for me and my teammates.”
Favre stated that every single teammate he had spoken to was also talking Super Bowl.
He wasn’t done.
“I’m going to the Super Bowl,” he said. “All I can tell people is if they don’t believe me, just bet against me.”
Right on cue, those ‘96 Packers delivered. The offense, defense and special teams units all finished No. 1 in the NFL. They went 16-3, walloping the New England Patriots inside the Superdome to bring the Lombardi Trophy home after 29 years. Titletown was reborn. In engineering one of the greatest turnarounds in sports history, Favre and Bob Harlan and Ron Wolf and Mike Holmgren and Reggie White psychologically rewired how everyone associated with this team thinks. It’s different here. Ever since those words, “Super Bowl or Bust,” the fans of this team — sorry, the owners — fully expect the Packers to compete for a championship every season.
Expectations never dim.
This pressure is constant. This pressure is a privilege embraced by every coach that occupies Vince’s chair because, frankly, most coaches would kill for such relevance, such quarterback bliss. Green Bay transitioned from one Hall of Fame quarterback to the next and has won more regular-season games than any team this side of the New England Patriots from 1992 to 2025. Of course, these Packers have also suffered their share of numbing playoff defeats along the way. The latest was an all-time choke. Yes, Green Bay led Chicago 21-3 at halftime of the NFC wild card. Yes, Green Bay’s odds of winning spiked to 96 percent at one point. And, yes, head coach Matt LaFleur again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as Bears head coach Ben Johnson danced all over this team’s grave. “Fuck the Packers!” he screamed in the locker room. “Fuck them!”
All of which left the team’s newly minted president, Ed Policy, with a seismic decision.
Listen to his angry constituents and fire someone. Losses this heinous get coaches canned all the time.
Or, take a deep breath. Stick with the status quo.
Policy inked both LaFleur and GM Brian Gutekunst to extensions and told reporters he was “shocked” anyone would even suggest the coach be fired. Fair enough. When all coaches, all players returned to work in the spring, LaFleur’s message to everyone promised to be consequential. For better, for worse. Here at Go Long, we previously examined another coach who could only take a team so far. Sean McDermott suffered his share of egregious playoff losses. None more disturbing than “13 Seconds” at Arrowhead Stadium to cap the 2021 season. The only thing worse than how the game went down — the touchback, the lax coverage, etc. — was the coach’s finger-pointing toward his assistants. He never recovered. Buffalo never recovered. All issues were detailed in our three-part series. When McDermott was finally fired four years later, high-ranking sources in the building pointed back to that haunting night in Kansas City as the loss that ultimately broke the team.
Back to LaFleur.
If he meets the same fate as McDermott, there’s a very good chance he regrets his own response to such a surreal playoff defeat.
True, LaFleur addressed X’s and O’s. One coach says they watched the 31-27 loss to Chicago at least “20 times” as a staff. Every what-if was scrutinized. All horror relived. The Packers immersed themselves in all minutiae. And when it was time to zoom out — time to drive home a global mission for all — Matt LaFleur defied everything these Packers have stood for since their great awakening.
All talk of Super Bowl, LaFleur decreed, must cease.
These words would be promptly removed from the team’s everyday lexicon.
“In his opinion,” one coach on staff explains, “we spent too much time talking about the end goal, talking about Super Bowls, talking about championship: ‘We’re the Green Bay Packers, championship, championship, championship.’ And not enough time just talking about daily improvements and getting better.
“So his message was, ‘Let’s not talk about Super Bowls. Let’s not talk about championships.’”
A 180-degree turn for an organization that has proudly announced itself as 12- and then 13-Time World Champions at every conceivable opportunity. This mentality’s been forever drilled into all minds. Across the street, ex-president Mark Murphy built up a 45-acre football heaven dubbed “Titletown.” Each year, he’d also inform all new rookies that the No. 1 objective is to win championships. Both Mike McCarthy and LaFleur declared the Super Bowl is in “X” number of days, repeatedly, to get all coaches, all scouts, all players on the same page. An expectation that synchronizes beautifully with all sights, all sounds inside Lambeau Field. It’s impossible to walk anywhere without seeing an image from the team’s storied past.
Yet into 2026, LaFleur instead wanted the Packers hyper-focused on the present, on “finishing” each drill, each meeting, each practice to prevent another meltdown.
His logic: Green Bay’s obsession with the end goal has become detrimental.
So what a scene it was for the Packers’ home opener. Legends past returned for the 30-year reunion of those ’96 revolutionaries. Wolf, LeRoy Butler, Desmond Howard and others were greeted to roaring applause as LaFleur’s 2026 edition honored them all with one of the most horrific efforts this stadium’s ever seen. The Packers couldn’t block, couldn’t run and were utterly steamrolled.
All pageantry soon gave way to a different sound: deafening boos.
It’d behoove Policy to open a window and listen.
Because, in truth, axing all “Super Bowl” talk is akin to fighting gravity with this fan base. The expectations of the team’s 538,000-plus owners will never change. Frustration is palpable. How on earth did the Packers reach such a low? Go Long spent several months talking to people around LaFleur: former and current coaches, players and people in personnel. As angst grows, it’s time to share our findings.
There’s a damning glitch to the Packers’ hardwiring.