{"id":823684,"date":"2026-03-20T19:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T19:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/823684\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T19:36:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T19:36:18","slug":"matt-lafleur-improved-on-challenges-and-fourth-down-aggressiveness-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/823684\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt LaFleur improved on challenges and fourth down aggressiveness in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Now, with the 2025 season firmly in the rearview mirror, I\u2019m happy to report that LaFleur must read Acme Packing Company. Not only did he shore up his pitiable track record on challenges in 2025, he massively dialed up the Packers\u2019 aggressiveness on 4th downs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">But the 4th down decision stuff is vastly more important. After going extremely conservative in 2024, LaFleur dramatically reversed course in 2025. According to <a href=\"http:\/\/rbsdm.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RBSDM.com<\/a>, no coach in the NFL was more aggressive on 4th down decisions than LaFleur. The Packers made the analytically correct go\/no-go call on 4th down 72.7% of the time last season, far ahead of the league average of 51.6%.\\<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Put differently, LaFleur was more aggressive on 4th downs in 2025 than the notoriously aggressive Dan Campbell has been in any season in his career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Crucially, there appears to be an inflection point in this data. Through the first seven weeks of the season, the Packers had a go rate of just 62.5% \u2014 tied with the Giants for seventh in the NFL. But from Week 8 through the end of the season, the Packers\u2019 go rate was 78.6%, comfortably the highest in the NFL. They were farther ahead of the second-most aggressive team (the Cowboys at 72.2% in that same span) than the second-most aggressive team was from the seventh-most aggressive team (the Colts at 66.7%).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">What happened in Week 7? The Packers faced a late 4th down call in Arizona Cardinals territory trailing by 3. LaFleur initially wanted to go for a field goal (and tie the game), but Jordan Love lobbied him to go for the win. They did, and Love found Tucker Kraft for a 15-yard gain and a first down. Three plays later, Josh Jacobs cashed in a touchdown, then Micah Parsons and the Packers held on to secure the win.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">There are many things for which we can criticize LaFleur, but this, happily, appears to no longer be one of them. If LaFleur can apply the same process improvement to other areas of his coaching game, the Packers could reap massive benefits in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now, with the 2025 season firmly in the rearview mirror, I\u2019m happy to report that LaFleur must read&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2072],"tags":[7,41,345,52919,2514,2513,6,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-823684","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-analysis","12":"tag-greenbay","13":"tag-greenbaypackers","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-packers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116263190472958809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823684","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=823684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}