Albert Breer’s Notes: Packers Appreciate What They Have in Matt LaFleur

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1. Green Bay Packers
2. Los Angeles Rams
3. New York Jets
4. Denver Broncos
5. Jacksonville Jaguars
6. Houston Texans
7. Philadelphia Eagles
8. Quick-hitters

Week 5 is done, we still have three undefeated teams left, and there’s plenty to get to in my weekly Tuesday notes …

Green Bay Packers

After what the Packers pulled off Sunday, a 31–7 romp over the Bears, I figured it was worth diving in on one of the narratives we saw in September: that Matt LaFleur could be in trouble.

On its face, it sure seems like an overreaction. LaFleur has a 79-42-1 record over nine regular seasons, which is 17th all time in winning percentage—better than Andy Reid or Sean Payton. He led the transition off of Aaron Rodgers, helping to identify Jordan Love in 2020 and developing him into a more-than-adequate successor to the Packers’ quarterbacking throne. He hasn’t won a Super Bowl, but he has been to two NFC championship games. There’s a lot to like.

And, yes, I understand and respect the standard in Green Bay. Mike Holmgren won it all in his fifth season, as did Mike McCarthy, and both did it with young quarterbacks that they personally developed. So the bar is unapologetically high.

Still, I look at where LaFleur has had the Packers, and the young talent that’s been developed on the roster, and it makes me wonder what exactly you’d want instead. And the other thing, to me, is where the team stands on him, which showed in what’s become a grudge match for him with Ben Johnson and Chicago.

Simply put, it looked like the Packers’ players had their coach’s back. And as Love explained to me after the game, they’ve had his back because he has theirs.

“Matt does a great job throughout the course of the week, getting in front of the team, talking to us, just focusing on us,” Love said. “The mindset, we know what it is. It’s a rivalry game. There’s a lot of rah-rah out there. He reiterated—just focus on us. It’s about us, our process, and it doesn’t matter who we’re playing. I think Matt did a great job today. Play-calling, I think we were dialing it up. We were rolling.

“It’s one of those things, as a play-caller, you’ve just got to continue to go week after week and see what we’re doing well, what we’re not doing well, what we need to change. That’s Matt. That’s who he is. He finds ways to adjust to what the offense is capable of and what we’re good at. It’s a process throughout the season, but Matt’s one of the best in the game, so nobody ever loses confidence in him and his abilities.”

The result Sunday: Love threw for 367 yards and two touchdowns on 25-of-31 passing, Christian Watson had six catches for 143 yards and both of those scores, Matthew Golden had another six catches for 123 yards, and Tucker Kraft had five catches for 64 yards. The run game is still touch-and-go, but the Packers may get a jolt there, too, if Josh Jacobs gets cleared to return.

Bottom line: There’s still a lot to like with LaFleur, and his players sure seem to know it.

Los Angeles Rams

Want to know why Sean McVay was so upset after the Rams’ loss to the Bills?

My guess: Because it was special teams that caused it.

There’s background here. Last year, in Week 16, the Rams had the Seahawks dead to rights, after picking off Sam Darnold, up 30–14 with less than 10 minutes left. The Rams punted from their 15-yard line, with 8:18 on the clock. Back was Seattle’s big midseason addition, Rashid Shaheed, who was still a work-in-progress on offense.

Shaheed gathered the ball at his 42, saw a seam, split the Rams’ coverage, burst through it and up the left sideline to wake up a crowd that had gone sleepy and, more importantly, his team. The Seahawks went for two and got it. They got a little luck after scoring again, with the Zach Charbonnet two-pointer to tie it, and won in OT. The win meant the NFC title game would be in Seattle, and the Seahawks won that heavyweight bout by four points, and then crushed the AFC champion Patriots in the Super Bowl.

So it would be easy to argue that the difference between the Rams losing in Seattle and winning McVay’s and Matthew Stafford’s second Super Bowl was that punt return (there was also a critical muffed punt in the NFC title game). And McVay operated that way in the immediate aftermath. He fired Chase Blackburn two days after the Week 16 loss. He hired well-regarded special teams coach Bubba Ventrone to replace him, four days after the NFC title game. He signed long snapper Joe Cardona and core special-teamer Grant Stuard in March.

If you were at their camp, you’d heard about all of this, and the optimism that this would all be fixed—with a new commitment to getting it right. Having Ventrone, Cardona and Stuard helped, but more than just that, they were symbolic of a renewed commitment.

Yet, there the Rams were on Monday night, with a special teams blunder, this time a blocked field goal, costing them a game and their kicker his job. And this was two weeks after a long punt return in the third quarter helped spark Denver’s comeback from a 16–0 halftime deficit, in another prime-time showdown between expected Super Bowl contenders.

Now, I’d say this: Ventrone’s a really good coach. I’d trust he’ll figure it out. But in the moment, it’s pretty easy to decipher why McVay was so upset over this one.

New York Jets

Aaron Glenn’s job security has been a big topic of discussion going back to the end of the 2025 season, his first in charge of the Jets, so it’s worth checking back in on that now, five games into 2026. And my check-in would show this: The Jets look like they’re going to be a tough out for the rest of the year.

I remember talking to someone in Detroit early in the 2025 season, who knew both former Lions coordinators well, and told me he thought Glenn would actually prove to be a better head coach than Ben Johnson. Will that be the case? I don’t know, but it is a pretty good reflection of how highly thought of Glenn was within the Lions’ organization, and how the people around him absolutely believe he has everything you’d need to be a really good head coach.

The guys playing for him in New York are seeing it now, too.

“When I got an opportunity to face him, whether he was in New Orleans or when he was the DC in Detroit, seeing the way that his guys fought for him and just the way they played, I mean, they were so aggressive, they flew around and he had a great scheme,” Jets QB Geno Smith told me. “I’m a guy who watches a ton of tape. And you can tell right away when a coach has a great scheme and puts his players in great positions. And those were always tough matchups and I enjoyed going up against them.

“And then, again, seeing when he became a head coach and the type of guys that he was bringing in, having a conversation with Demario [Davis] about wanting to come back here and turn the ship around. And all the guys that are here are guys who truly believe in Coach Glenn. And I think that’s a big piece that matters. When you have guys who have total buy-in, it’s really easy to get the message across. And guys are going to follow your lead.

“We know the way that he works. He’s an outstanding leader. And again, he’s a great coach. He understands scheme and he puts guys in great positions. So we’ve got to follow his lead.”

The proof is in the pudding—the Jets are better than most thought. They’re 2–3, and probably should’ve beaten the Packers in Week 2, too. And next up, they’ll have a nice chance to make a statement with a trip to Foxborough to face the Patriots.

“Massive opportunity,” Smith said. “But it’s only the biggest game because it’s the next game. And what we have to do is develop that mentality that no matter what the situation is, we handle our business. We handle the task at hand, and we do it with dominance. And so you can say you can make a statement, but every game to me is a statement game.”

And if the Jets can find a way to win? With the Dolphins next on the schedule, being above .500 on Halloween is in reach.

Denver Broncos

So there was one obvious, simple difference in play-calling with Sean Payton taking over for Davis Webb in Week 5: The Broncos were going to run the ball, come hell or high water.

Here’s the play selection rundown this year for Denver, counting sacks and scrambles as called pass plays:

• Week 1, at Chiefs: 33 passes, 14 runs
• Week 2, vs. Jaguars: 31 passes, 28 runs
• Week 3, vs. Rams: 36 passes, 24 runs
• Week 4, at 49ers: 44 passes, 20 runs
• Week 5, at Chargers: 29 passes, 28 runs

Obviously, these things can be affected by the score, which is why I also took a look at first-half play-calling, since that would be closer to how a coach drew it up and less dependent on a team facing a deficit. And there, the difference may be even more stark. There was an even 17–17 pass-run split in the first half against the Chargers, while it was 19–6 against the Chiefs, 16–11 against the Jaguars, 13–8 against the Rams and 25–8 against the 49ers.

It didn’t necessarily result in wild rushing numbers in Week 5, as the Broncos were under four yards per carry. But in the end, it did help the Broncos grind out a first down in their four-minute offense on their last possession, and likely would’ve resulted in another, if not for a delay of game flag, that would’ve ended the game in victory formation.

Anyway, we’ll see if that trend holds up.

Jacksonville Jaguars

The Jaguars’ loss of Anton Harrison is a tough one—especially this week, with the Texans looming at Wembley Stadium on Sunday. But Jacksonville, as I see it, is as well-equipped as anyone to deal with it.

This summer, the Jaguars started experimenting with flipping Harrison with incumbent left tackle Walker Little, who lost his job late in the 2025 season, but was back in the starting lineup as Cole Van Lanen (who got a three-year extension just before getting hurt) worked his way back from knee surgery. It was an effort to get the best five guys out there, and Harrison wound up sticking at left tackle, with Van Lanen eventually going to the right side.

The result of all this was the Jaguars going into the season with uncommon depth up front, with Harrison at left tackle, Van Lanen at right tackle and Little as the swing tackle. That’s a former first-round pick, by the way (Harrison), and two guys the team has paid. And now, that investment will pay off with Little ready to step back into his old spot at left tackle.

With, again, Will Anderson Jr. & Co. up next.

Houston Texans

Speaking of the Texans, they had a new play-caller this week, too, with DeMeco Ryans taking over for a very well-regarded coordinator, Matt Burke.

Results did follow. The three points they yielded to Tennessee were a season low, as were the 187 yards allowed, and the 15 first downs were the second-fewest by the group this year.

And yes, it was against the Titans, which is a factor. But at the very least, a proud defense did get a jolt from the change.

“I’d just say it’s the energy, man. He’s electrifying,” Anderson told me. “He’s going to rally behind the guys. He’s going to have energy on the sideline, and that’s what you have to have in a coach.”

Philadelphia Eagles

The development of the 2025 rookie class may be the final gift that former Eagles line coach Jeff Stoutland gave the franchise. Drew Kendall is now the team’s starting center, and he was a fifth-round pick out of that draft. Willie Lampkin, now the team’s starting left guard, was a waiver claim from the summer of 2025. And when Kendall couldn’t go Sunday in London, another 2025 rookie waiver claim, Jake Majors, stepped into his spot at center.

The NFL has a major issue when it comes to developing linemen, based on how a lot of guys are taught in college, which made having Stoutland a cheat code for Philly.

New line coach Chris Kuper deserves credit here, too, and it is true that Lampkin spent last fall with the Eagles on injured reserve. Still, just the experience of being taught by Stoutland last year certainly had its impact on those guys—and surely is an impact still being felt.

Quick-hitters

• The Alaric Jackson punch thrown after Monday night’s game is pretty problematic given the offseason that the Rams’ left tackle just had. You’d also wonder if the fact that the league is still looking into his domestic violence case will make the folks on Park Avenue a little less sympathetic to him on this one. It would be hard to blame the NFL if it is.

• Lost in the game-management conversation—that was a heck of a comeback on the road for the Giants in Washington. They didn’t get the win, but you can very clearly see the identity of the team that John Harbaugh is building.

• I’d feel pretty good about Michael Penix Jr. through three starts if I were the Falcons. We’ll see if it holds, but he’s already making a case to be the quarterback again in 2027, and he can help his own cause by playing Atlanta out of position to take one in the draft.

• Finally, Fernando Mendoza looked really comfortable, albeit in garbage time, in his first action on Sunday in Foxborough. He threw on time, was elusive in the pocket and seemed to have command for a rookie. Small sample, but so far, so good.