Packers’ Matt LaFleur asked about his potential 2026 staff

Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur still doesn’t want to talk about his contract situation in Green Bay, at least in front of the media. On both Saturday, after the team’s loss to the Chicago Bears, and Sunday, he said some version of “now is not the time to talk about this” when peppered by questions about whether he will be the team’s head coach in 2026.

What he would dabble in, though, is hypotheticals about his 2026 staff. When asked if he will bring back all of his assistants next year, if he is back, he said that’s something the team is working through right now.

He was also asked if the team would look at an external hire to replace defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley. His response: “All options are on the table.”

This is notable, considering the way things have been done in Green Bay. Most of the staff are from internal promotions. Below is a breakdown of how many years the Packers’ coaches have held (at least) positional coaching jobs with another NFL team:

• Offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich: 0 years
• Passing game coordinator Jason Vrable: 0 years
• Quarterbacks coach Sean Mannion: 0 years
• Running backs coach Ben Sirmans: 4 years (a holdover who was originally a member of Mike McCarthy’s staff)
• Receivers coach Ryan Mahaffey: 0 years
• Tight ends coach John Dunn: 2 years
• Offensive line coach Luke Butkus: 0 years
• Defensive Coordinator Jeff Hafley: 6 years
• Defensive line coach/run game coordinator DeMarcus Covington: 6 years
• Passing game coordinator Derrick Ansley: 6 years
• Linebackers coach Sean Duggan: 0 years
• Defensive backs coach Ryan Downard: 0 years
• Special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia: 20 years

The Packers haven’t exactly built an experienced staff of grizzly vets, except for Bisaccia. Bisaccia has held an on-field coaching gig with non-Green Bay programs for 20 years before his stint with the Packers. The rest of Green Bay’s staff, 12 coaches combined, have 24 years on their resumes.

If there were an internal promotion to defensive coordinator, it would probably come by way of Covington or Ansley, who have prior NFL experience as defensive coordinators. In all likelihood, Hafley will take one of those assistants to be his defensive coordinator, wherever he ends up landing.

Generally, when a coach leaves the Packers, Green Bay’s answer is to promote the guy leaving with the guy who used to get him coffee, because it is cheap. If you think the team searched the globe for the best receivers coach when Jason Vrable was promoted to passing game coordinator, only to find out that the best man for the job globally was their own assistant offensive line coach, Ryan Mahaffey, then I don’t know what to tell you.

They’ll pay a lot when they mess up big time, like after two straight misses — which happened at both special teams coordinator and defensive line coach under LaFleur — but those are mostly exceptions to the rule. If they lose two of Hafley, Covington and Ansley, that’s 12 of the 24 years of non-Packers NFL experience that the non-Bisaccia assistants on the 2025 staff have combined. Based on the team’s trends, the club won’t exactly want to spend good money to replace that experience, either.

LaFleur said that he “fully anticipates [Hafley] getting one of these” head coaching jobs this cycle.

When asked about his relationship with new Packers president and CEO Ed Policy, who has been with the team since 2012, LaFleur responded, “It feels like since I got here,” essentially claiming that Policy is fairly close to Mark Murphy day-to-day.

LaFleur was finally asked whether he would come back to the Packers if the team didn’t extend him and had him on a “lame duck season” in 2026. He answered that the questions “are for another time.”

I will say this: It’s going to be hard to hire from the outside, at any position, if the rest of the staff is on one-year deals. Based on the tone of his Sunday press conference, though, it sure doesn’t sound like LaFleur believes he’s out. Read into that what you will.