The Packers are handing the reins of the franchise to Matt LaFleur. I don’t get it. I suppose he must have really impressed them in the interview, but I thought he was underwhelming last year as the offensive coordinator in Tennessee.
LaFleur has worked with Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan. That’s great, and it contributed to me being excited about what he might do with the Titans last year. The hope is that he might be a young genius on the rise.
But now we’ve got a year of on-his-own work to look at it, and he wasn’t able to do much with the Titans.
Tennessee nearly made the playoffs, but only five teams scored fewer points last year. And it was a bottom-10 offense in yards. With Derrick Henry coming on late in the year, the Titans ranked 7th in rushing, but only two teams passed for fewer yards.
Only Arizona and Buffalo, with rookie quarterbacks playing most of the season, passed for fewer yards than Tennessee.
In my eyes, LaFleur wasn’t able to do enough with Marcus Mariota to merit a promotion. Mariota was in his fourth year – seemingly ready to blossom – but instead of getting better last year, he got worse. And there was some talent around him. The Titans have the nice pair of tackles, and Corey Davis looks like an up-and-coming superstar receiver. They didn’t do enough to get young receivers like Taywan Taylor and Tajae Sharpe going.
I understand that they played the entire season with Delanie Walker, but I think most of the teams in the league lost at least some player for most of the season who was about as significant as Walker.
McVay has worked wonders for Jared Goff. Shanahan has done some very good things with Jimmy Garoppolo, Nick Mullens and C.J. Beathard. LaFleur didn’t seem to have that kind of effect on Mariota, who takes too many sacks and misses on too many key throws.
Packers obviously know LaFleur a lot better than I do, but I am wait-and-see at best on this hire.
| MARCUS MARIOTA GAME LOGS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opp | Result | Cmp | Att | Yds | TD | Int | Sk |
| @Mia | L 20-27 | 9 | 16 | 103 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| PHI | W 26-23 | 30 | 43 | 344 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| @Buf | L 12-13 | 14 | 26 | 129 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| BAL | L 0-21 | 10 | 15 | 117 | 0 | 0 | 11 |
| v.LAC | L 19-20 | 24 | 32 | 237 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| @Dal | W 28-14 | 21 | 29 | 240 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| NWE | W 34-10 | 16 | 24 | 228 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| @Ind | L 10-38 | 10 | 13 | 85 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| @Hou | L 17-34 | 22 | 23 | 303 | 2 | 0 | 6 |
| NYJ | W 26-22 | 20 | 35 | 282 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| JAX | W 30-9 | 18 | 24 | 162 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| @NYG | W 17-0 | 12 | 20 | 88 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| WAS | W 25-16 | 10 | 13 | 110 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
—Ian Allan