The NFL coaching carousel has been crazy this year. There are currently eight job openings, and guys like John Harbaugh and Kevin Stefanski, two of the top coaches in the league, were fired. A quarter of the league is looking for a head coach this offseason, but I think there should be another team searching for its next leader.

The Green Bay Packers should fire Matt LaFleur. I was on the fence about it after the regular season, but after their brutal playoff loss to the Chicago Bears, it’s a no-brainer in my opinion. LaFleur should be out in Green Bay, but I doubt they’ll have the cajones to do it.

Here’s why I think LaFleur should be on his way out.

He was simply out-coached by Ben Johnson

It’s crazy to think that Ben Johnson had one of the worst coaching performances in playoff history in the first half of this game, and yet he still out-coached LaFleur on Saturday. The Bears went into the half trailing 21-3, but scored 28 points in the second half (including 25 in the fourth quarter) while holding Green Bay to six points to come back and win, 31-27.

Johnson (and his staff) made adjustments. They learned as the game went along and figured out ways to take advantage of what the Packers were doing. On the other side, LaFleur and his staff did not make adjustments. He got off to a hot start and kept doing what was working in the first half, even when Chicago changed things up on them.

LaFleur is supposed to be this brilliant offensive mind, but what kind of offensive coach only puts up six points in the final half of a playoff game against a defense that ranks 23rd in points per game allowed and 25th in passing yards allowed? Not a great one, I can tell you that, especially when you consider Jordan Love played one of the best games of his career.

Johnson got the better of him after a terrible start, and it’s not the first time that’s happened this year. Just a few weeks ago, the Bears fell behind 13-3 entering the fourth quarter, but sent it to overtime and eventually won, 21-16. The Bears didn’t take a single offensive snap against the Packers this year, despite leading the game, but they still went 2-1. In fact, LaFleur lost three games this year when leading by 10 points or more with five minutes left. Before this year, the Packers were 306-1 in such games since 1970.

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But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

He’s horrible in the playoffs

Feeding off that last section a bit, LaFleur is one of the worst playoff coaches in the league right now. He’s made six playoff appearances with the Packers since he took over in 2019, and he’s 3-6 in the postseason. He has one playoff win since 2020, which came in the Wild Card round against the Dallas Cowboys, who are probably the only bigger playoff chokers in the NFC.

Even when LaFleur led the Packers to three consecutive 13-win seasons in his first three years as their head coach, he went 2-3 in the playoffs despite securing a first-round bye every year. In 2019, they narrowly escaped the Seattle Seahawks before losing to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship. The following year, they beat the Los Angeles Rams before falling to Tom Brady‘s Tampa Bay team. Then, in 2021, the Packers were bounced in their first playoff game after their bye against the 49ers, in a game where they scored 10 points.

Since 2021, LaFleur is 1-3 in the playoffs, and to make matters worse, he just lost to the Bears, their arch rivals, who haven’t beaten them in the postseason in over 80 years. He’s been miserable in the postseason, which is another reason he should be fired.

He’s a 7-seed merchant

Let’s talk about the fact that, without the NFL expanding the playoffs to seven teams in 2020, LaFleur and the Packers would’ve missed the playoffs in each of the last four seasons. They have been the 7-seed in the NFC for the past three years now, so without the expansion, their last playoff appearance would’ve been in 2021, when they lost to San Fran in their first playoff game after going 13-4.

Despite having what I believe to be one of the better rosters in the NFL each of those years, the Packers just keep underperforming under LaFleur. They hardly make the playoffs, and once they’re in, they fall flat on their face year after year.

The fact of the matter is, LaFleur is a decent enough coach to get you to the playoffs if he has a good roster, but he’s not going to take an average team to the postseason. And even when he had an elite roster with one of the best quarterbacks of our generation (Aaron Rodgers) and a first-round bye for three straight seasons, he couldn’t even make it to the Super Bowl, much less win it.

LaFleur is one of the most overrated coaches in the NFL right now, and if the Packers are serious about winning the Super Bowl with Jordan Love, they’d get rid of him.