GREEN BAY — Matt LaFleur knows how you feel.

He understands how excited you got when his Green Bay Packers started the season with impressive, back-to-back victories over two fellow NFC contenders — the Detroit Lions and Washington Commanders — in a five-day span at Lambeau Field. 

And he gets why you might be a little concerned now after an ugly loss to the lowly Cleveland Browns on Sept. 21 and his team’s pre-bye 40-40 tie-that-felt-like-a-loss debacle with the Dallas Cowboys.

But the Packers seventh-year head coach has seen a lot during his tenure, and while his former quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ famous “R-E-L-A-X” advice early in the 2014 season pre-dates him, LaFleur doesn’t think anyone should be panicking and thinking this team stinks.

“Every team in the league comes in and says they’re chasing the Lombardi [Trophy},” LaFleur said during a pre-bye Q&A session with reporters last week. “But it’s a process to get there.

“I don’t expect us to play our best football in September. We’ve got to get better. I’m more worried about getting better each and every game. You can look at our record right now. We’re 2-1-1. Are we disappointed we’re not better? Absolutely. But I still think even in the two games we won, I don’t think we put together a full game of complementary football.

“We’ve got to — somehow, some way — be able to do that collectively in all three phases where we’re putting our best out there.”

That’s not to say that LaFleur was OK with what transpired during the course of his team’s last two games.

While he wasn’t about to flat-out say that the Packers should be sitting at 4-0 heading into next Sunday’s matchup with the spiraling Cincinnati Bengals (2-3) at Lambeau Field, he knows full well that they have only themselves to blame for their 2-1-1 record.

Against the Browns, the Packers had the ball and a 10-3 lead with just over 3 minutes to go when quarterback Jordan Love threw an interception deep in Green Bay territory that set up the game-tying touchdown. Not long after, the struggling special-teams units got a potential go-ahead field goal blocked, and the Browns won the game on a walk-off field goal of their own.

Against the Cowboys, LaFleur was overly aggressive just before halftime, leading to a sack/fumble on Love that gift-wrapped a touchdown on the next play. The field-goal protection unit also allowed an extra point to be blocked and returned for a 2-point defensive conversion.

And then, to end the game, the offense lollygagged away the final 28 seconds of overtime, forcing the Packers to settle for Brandon McManus’ field goal as time expired to escape with a tie instead of an L.

“When you have opportunities to win games, which we had an opportunity in both games to win the game, and you don’t win the game, it’s disappointing,” said LaFleur, whose players returned from their week off on Sunday night and will practice Monday morning.

“You look around the league, though. You can’t take anything for granted. You see it every week, somebody who’s ‘supposed’ to win the game doesn’t win the game. This league is competitive. That’s why you can’t take it for granted. You’ve got to give your best shot every week. Otherwise, you will get beat.

“Statistically, I don’t know where all the ‘DVOA’ nerds are out there, but statistically [the Cowboys] are one of the best offenses in the league. And then the week before [against the Browns], you’re going against one of the best defenses in the league.

“So when you’re playing somebody else’s strength, you’ve got to hold up your end really in every phase to find a way to win the game.”

That includes Love, who has been excellent overall in the first four games (completing 69.7% of his passes for 1,000 yards with eight touchdowns and one interception for a 112.9 passer rating) but whose late-game missteps have factored into the 2-1-1 record.

“I think we’ve shown what we’re about when we’re playing very well. We’ve just got to do that,” Love said. “We’ve got to be consistent every day, whether it’s practice [or] games. Every time we touch the field, we’ve got to be consistent.

“There’s just a lot of little areas that, if we clean up and execute at a better clip, we’ll be the team we want to be. I have no doubt in that. I know we’re still a really good team. But it comes down to on Sundays coming out here and performing, executing at a high level.

“There is some disappointment in these past two weeks, but there’s still a lot of stuff to clean up, and we’ve still got a long season ahead of us. And I still know what type of team we are.”

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