The Green Bay Packers’ Matt LaFleur didn’t make the cut for Pro Football Focus’ top 10 head coaches going into the 2025 season.
Earlier this week, Pro Football Focus analyst Dalton Wasserman published a top 10 returning head coaches list ahead of the 2025 season. As expected, the usual names were on the list (subscription required): Andy Reid, Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, John Harbaugh, and Mike Tomlin. Unexpectedly, Matt LaFleur was left off the top 10 list. And it’s not clear why.
There were no honorable mentions or justifications for why certain coaches were left off or ranked where they were. Rather, the list seems to primarily focus on who’s won a Super Bowl at some point in their coaching career. Fair or unfair, that’s always going to be the standard. But even there, the rankings are puzzling.
PFF Head Coaching Rankings
- Andy Reid, Kansas City Chiefs
- Sean Payton, Denver Broncos
- Sean McVay, Los Angeles Rams
- John Harbaugh, Baltimore Ravens
- Mike Tomlin, Pittsburgh Steelers
- Jim Harbaugh, Los Angeles Chargers
- Kyle Shanahan, San Francisco 49ers
- Nick Sirianni, Philadelphia Eagles
- Dan Campbell, Detroit Lions
- Kevin Stefanski, Cleveland Browns
The list is above. Draw your own conclusions, but I have several quarrels with it personally. Among them are the rankings on this list of Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh, neither of which have done anything to merit top 10 consideration except winning a Super Bowl 10+ years ago.
Mike Tomlin boasts an impressive 183-107-2 head coaching record, has never even had a losing season as a head coach, and has won a Super Bowl, way back in 2008, and lost one to the Packers in 2010. Since that Super Bowl loss, the Steelers have won just three playoff games and just one since 2016. His quarterback situation has primarily stalled them in the playoffs since then.
But even Kyle Shanahan managed to make the playoffs and win multiple games with a third-string quarterback recently. Tomlin shouldn’t be held to a different, lower standard because he’s won a Super Bowl in a different era.
Consequently, John Harbaugh being ranked in the top 10 is also worthy of scorn. Harbaugh has the opposite problem of Tomlin. He has a two-time MVP quarterback, has won multiple more playoff games than his division rival, but still cannot get the job done with some of the best rosters in the NFL and one of the best quarterbacks we’ve ever seen in our lifetime.
Every time the Ravens get into the playoffs, Harbaugh’s talented rosters never live up to the hype, except for Lamar Jackson. For a team with Super Bowl aspirations every season, their defense has not been able to generate a single interception since the 2020 playoffs, with their last turnover coming in the 2022 playoffs, a recovered fumble. The last two playoff runs, that defense has played in four games and hasn’t generated a single turnover.
Other questionable coaches on the list:
Sean Payton as the #2-ranked head coach? Another one riding the coattails of a Super Bowl, 15 years old. Payton led six teams with losing records in his tenure with the Saints while also having a Hall of Fame quarterback. He was out of the NFL for two seasons, came back as the Broncos’ head coach, and led the 16th most efficient offense last season in EPA/play. The heart and soul, for now, of that Broncos team is the defense, and the number two rank is…well…rank. Top 10? Maybe. I do think Payton did an excellent job getting efficient production out of a limited rookie quarterback last season.
Nick Sirianni? There perhaps isn’t a more “I did nothing on the group project and still got an A” in head coach form than Sirianni. Yeah, he also won a Super Bowl, thanks to general manager Howie Roseman. Sirianni was nice enough to stop yelling at fans or trying to fight other coaches on his staff long enough for a playoff run to materialize into a Super Bowl, even if Roseman’s offseason hires of Kellen Moore and Vic Fangio were the REAL reasons why. Fangio is still there, but Kellen Moore is gone. We’ll see if they can weather that storm.
Dan Campbell, for some reason, also gets too much of the shine for what Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn did for that team. Perhaps no coaching staff has more to prove than the Lions after losing both of their coordinators, one of them to a division rival, and a Super Bowl window that is just about shut for now.
Kevin Stefanski? Hard pass there as well. The Browns’ head coach is 41-46 with one playoff win and was partially responsible for trading Baker Mayfield away to make room for Deshaun Watson. Yet he’s managed to somehow hold onto his job. It’s baffling. Meanwhile, Baker Mayfield resurrected his career after brief stints with the Panthers and Rams, and has played in the same number of playoff games in the last two seasons that Stefanski has in his coaching career.
I’m sensing a theme here with these coaches, outside of Payton, they all seem to be the CEO-type of head coach. It’s questionable how much of their success is because of them or because of their respective staffs. I wouldn’t rank any of them currently in the top 10 except for Payton.
The case for Matt LaFleur
Matt LaFleur gets no credit, apparently, for anything because he won a ton of games with a future Hall of Fame quarterback when he took over as head coach. No one can deny Aaron Rodgers’ greatness, but he’s not exactly done anything in his post-Packers career. And LaFleur has had two winning seasons since Rodgers departed and has taken the team to the playoffs twice since then. He’s 67-33 in the regular season with a 3-5 playoff record.
Granted, he has not gotten it done either, has several playoff losses to Kyle Shanahan and one to Tom Brady, but one of those teams was an eventual Super Bowl champion anyway, and the 49ers have lost twice to Andy Reid in the Super Bowl with Shanahan. Football is funny like that.
Small sample sizes being what they are, it’s easy to forget, or not realize, that LaFleur has had five top 10 offenses in EPA/play since 2019, with three of those being in the top 5 of the NFL, including one of those years in the top 5 with first year starter Jordan Love.
In fact, if LaFleur and the Packers finish above .500, then it’s certain they will have a top 10 offense at the very least. Those top 10 offensive seasons have come in years where they finish above .500. The season they finished 8-9? They were ranked 11th in EPA/play on offense. And the offensive talent hasn’t been great post-Rodgers/Davante Adams, but LaFleur has found ways to win games with the roster they have.
Another reason why LaFleur should be on it? Malik Willis. Enough said.
This would be my top 10:
- Andy Reid
- Kyle Shanahan
- Sean McVay
- Matt LaFleur
- Kevin O’Connell
- Jim Harbaugh
- DeMeco Ryans
- Mike McDonald
- Sean McDermott
- Sean Payton
Who would be in your top 10? Where would you rank LaFleur?