The Green Bay Packers are back in the NFC Championship, this after beating the Seattle Seahawks 28-23 at Lambeau Field on Sunday. The Packers led 21-3 and got just enough plays from Aaron Rodgers, Davante Adams and Aaron Jones to seal the win.
First-year head coach Matt LaFleur is now just one win away from the Super Bowl.
“It’s incredible when you really break it down,” Packers.com writer Wes Hodkiewicz said of LaFleur’s impact on the Packers’ organization. “You look at the message he sent to this locker room from the very beginning, when he changed the color scheme of the hallways at Lambeau Field, when he put a basketball hoop in their team meeting room – it was just the culture shift. Not necessarily there was something they needed to get away from with Mike McCarthy, but just kind of setting his own foundation and the vision he had for things. Another think that really stands out is just his play-calling.”
Rodgers finished 16-of-27 for 243 yards and two touchdowns against Seattle. It was a solid game, but he was masterful on third down, going 9-of-11 for 121 yards, one touchdown and a 155.8 QB rating.
LaFleur had a lot to do with that, even if he wouldn’t admit it.
“I think a lot of times he’s so willing to kind of distribute the credit and deflect away from himself,” Hodkiewicz said of the 40-year-old. “There was a play that stood out to me tonight with Davante Adams. It was on one of his touchdown passes. They came out of a 13 personnel package with three tight ends, and they were looking for man coverage against Seattle. They finally got it, he did kind of this post-corner route and was able to get open. Afterwards, Adams said, ‘That was genius, Matt LaFleur kind of just coming up with that and being able to install that and call that at exactly the right time to be able to get this offense moving.’”
Jones, meanwhile, carried 21 times for 62 yards and two touchdowns. Allen Lazard and Tyler Ervin, meanwhile, combined for three carries for 30 yards.
“You’re seeing so many of those Shanahan-type principles with the multiple tight ends, bunch formations, a lot of motion in the backfield,” Hodkiewicz said. “But at the end of the day, it’s up to LaFleur to really push the right button at the right time. I thought this game was exactly that, whether it was his performance as an offensive play-caller, whether it was Aaron Rodgers with so many people kind of doubting him where he was at and [whether] he could still shoulder the load at this point in his career. It just was a full-fledged, across-the-board performance, and when they needed to dig down deep late when maybe there was some adversity, they found a way to get those answers. That’s been my biggest takeaway from Matt LaFleur this season. He always seems to find a way and has the right words at the right time to motivate that locker room.”
The Packers will face the 49ers on the road this Sunday at 6:40 p.m. ET. San Francisco beat Green Bay at home 37-8 on Nov. 24.