Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur answered questions from the media for around 12 minutes following his team’s stunning collapse during Saturday’s NFC Wild Card Round loss to the Chicago Bears at Soldier Field.
The Packers led 21-3 at halftime and 27-16 late in the fourth quarter and still found a way to lose.
LaFleur’s team lost five straight games to end the 2025 season. And he’ll now head into the offseason with a contract negotiation and a big organization decision ahead.
A few tidbits from LaFleur’s post-game press conference:
— On the loss: “This one is going to hurt for a really, really long time. When you’re in complete control of a football game and script gets flipped in the second half…it was a lot of self-inflicted things. Give credit to them, we knew they were a team that could come back and fight, they proved it all season long. We had opportunities to put them away and didn’t get it done.”
— On what went wrong: “A lot of bad things happened. A pivotal part was, offensively, we come out in the second half and could not get anything going…it was too many opportunities when you have the ball and not scoring.” LaFleur said the Bears started bringing pressure in the second half and the Packers reacted poorly up front.
— On Caleb Williams: “He’s a great player. You can’t give him that many opportunities…you have to find a way to put him away.”
— On his future, does he expect to be back? “With all due respect to your question, now is not the time for that. I’m just hurting for these guys. I can only think about what just happened. There will be time for that.”
— On Jordan Love: “I thought he played his ass off…we didn’t do enough around him. I can’t say enough great things about Jordan Love.”
— On Brandon McManus: “One of those kicks was a long kick at the end of the half, conditions were windy. But the difference was they made theirs and we did not.”
— On delay of game after a timeout: “That’s a great question. That’s inexcusable.”
— Did he change how he called plays in the second half:” No. They started bringing more pressure. So we went to more of our dropback protections…there were multiple occasions where it should have been picked up but wasn’t.”
— How to flip the script: “We have to do a better job of keeping our composure….when you get in big games, when you don’t execute simple fundamentals, it comes back to bite you. And that’s exactly what happened.”
— On what it means to be the Packers coach: “It means everything to me. This is the greatest organization in the world, in my opinion. It’s very humbling. And I’m disappointed for everybody that’s associated with the Green Bay Packers. I’m disappointed for our locker room, our fans, our leadership, all our employees, everybody involved with the Packers.”
— On the late timeouts: “We wanted to get a good play that could pick up a chunk. We had an injury that burned some time. The timeout that really hurt us was when we make a substitution error and we have too many defensive players on the field. That stuff cannot happen.”
— On the last play: “I did not see what happened in the pocket. We were trying to get everybody in the end zone. He was going to spit it out to Rome to get 5-7 yards and get a little closer. When he dropped the ball, then it becomes the last play of the game. It’s just chaos.”
— On getting over the hump as an organization: “It’s going to take a lot of work because we’re not where we want to be. I know we fought through a lot of adversity this year but unfortunately, we did not do enough to overcome that adversity. That’s all of us, collectively. We have to do more, we have to be better. It’s never an excuse. I know we lost some key players but you have to find a way to overcome that. I think we have a lot of talent on our team, it’s just disappointing.:
LIVE: Head Coach Matt LaFleur speaks to the media🎙️
https://t.co/43qvL0A3Dt— Green Bay Packers (@packers) January 11, 2026
This article originally appeared on Packers Wire: What Matt LaFleur had to say after Packers’ stunning playoff collapse in Chicago
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