{"id":680779,"date":"2026-01-16T02:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/680779\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T02:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:50:14","slug":"matt-lafleur-news-years-not-per-year-salary-is-the-packers-extension-hang-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/680779\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt LaFleur News: Years, not per-year salary, is the Packers\u2019 extension hang-up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, one of the best members of the Green Bay Packers\u2019 beat, just wrote an update<\/a> on where things stand between the Packers and head coach Matt LaFleur, as Green Bay attempts to get a deal done for LaFleur to be the coach of the Packers in 2026 and moving forward. As he put it, \u201cnegotiations are dragging.\u201d<\/p>\n

Per Silverstein\u2019s sources, the issue \u201cisn\u2019t as much about money as it is length,\u201d which, in my opinion, is a statement that has some merit to it, but is still ultimately about money. Silverstein claims that LaFleur\u2019s market is expected to be in the $14 million to $15 million range from Green Bay, but the team is hedging their bets, \u201coffering him a one- or two-year extension.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve written before, a source told me that LaFleur makes \u201cless than double<\/a>\u201d the initial salary he made in Green Bay. When he signed on in 2019, I\u2019m told, he made $5 million per year. Silverstein\u2019s sources claim he currently makes between $8 million and $10 million on his current extension, which makes sense based on what was told to me.<\/p>\n

This part is where I say it\u2019s still about the money. Whether you have an agreed-upon per-year number or not, the industry standard is for coaching contracts to be guaranteed, outside of incentives (these are fairly limited and not the bulk of coaches\u2019 pay). So even though it\u2019s not about the cash flow, it is still about the money.<\/p>\n

If LaFleur gets a new two-year extension (let\u2019s call it $14.5 million per year to split Silverstein\u2019s ranges), on top of the year he still has left (let\u2019s call it $9 million to again split Silverstein\u2019s ranges), that\u2019s $38 million in guaranteed money. With John Harbaugh reportedly signing for a $100 million contract after hitting the market<\/a>, you can see that there\u2019s a bit of a gulf between these two offers \u2014 for coaches who would have been considered in the same tier of priority in this coaching market, had LaFleur become available when Harbaugh did.<\/p>\n

On top of that, it\u2019s important to keep in context the value that Chicago\u2019s Ben Johnson and Jacksonville\u2019s Liam Coen signed for, before ever being a head coach at the NFL level. Johnson signed a $13 million per year deal for five years ($65 million), and Coen signed a $12 million per year deal for five years ($60 million).<\/p>\n

Sure, it\u2019s not about cash flow, but it\u2019s still about committed money. At least, that\u2019s how I see it. Nothing prevents the Packers from signing LaFleur to a five-year extension and releasing him before those five years are done. They apparently aren\u2019t offering that because the cost to fire, which is inherently a money decision.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a quote from the article:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re still a little bit of a mom-and-pop organization,\u201d the first agent said of the Packers not being proactive with signing LaFleur. \u201cYou don\u2019t get to hedge your bets. Matt has some leverage. He\u2019s going to want a deal where he can coach knowing he\u2019s not going to get fired.\u201d<\/p>\n

Per Silverstein, Green Bay \u201cstayed out of the Harbaugh sweepstakes even through back channels,\u201d but there\u2019s a belief that the team could pivot to hiring defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley to the head coach role at a rate of $7 million per season. For what it\u2019s worth, first-time head coach deals in that range usually come on five-year deals, so that $35 million guaranteed would be around the same range of financial commitment as this supposed two-year extension offer (plus the 2026 season already on the books) for LaFleur. LaFleur\u2019s first deal was a four-year deal with a fifth-year option for the team.<\/p>\n

The Packers \u201cwould probably let him negotiate with other teams and ask for draft-pick compensation to allow him out of the final year of his deal,\u201d Silverstein added about LaFleur in the context of a Hafley promotion. \u201cAt some point Hafley is going to be off the table though.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far, Hafley has interviewed or will interview with six of the eight open jobs in the NFL right now<\/a>: Arizona, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Miami, Pittsburgh and Tennessee. The only jobs he isn\u2019t getting a look at, for now, are Baltimore and Cleveland, but he also never interviewed for the New York Giants, who drew first blood in this coaching cycle by hiring Harbaugh.<\/p>\n

Silverstein ended the piece with the following statement: \u201cRight now, it looks like LaFleur has the upper hand and the Packers must decide if they\u2019re all-in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, one of the best members of the Green Bay Packers\u2019 beat,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2072],"tags":[7,41,345,97481,2702,2514,2513,6,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-680779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-green-bay-packers","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-green-bay","10":"tag-green-bay-packers","11":"tag-green-bay-packers-coaching-staff","12":"tag-green-bay-packers-news","13":"tag-greenbay","14":"tag-greenbaypackers","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-packers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115902508251134039","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}