Washington-Packers Q&A: Looking back at Matt LaFleur’s time in Washington

On Sunday, the Green Bay Packers return to Lambeau Field to take on Washington. Andrew York of Hogs Haven kindly volunteered to answer our questions about the Washington and provide some insight into their strengths and weaknesses.

APC: This offseason, the Packers hired Matt LaFleur as their new head coach. LaFleur spent four seasons in Washington as the quarterback coach, working with Kirk Cousins, Robert Griffin III, and others. What did you make of LaFleur’s work at the time, and at what point did you believe he might have head-coaching potential?

Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to give a very satisfying answer to this question. I honestly didn’t notice much about LaFleur while he was here. Head coach Mike Shanahan and his son (and OC) Kyle Shanahan were much bigger personalities at the time and were credited with the success of the offense. The offense was built around their zone running scheme, which could open holes any running back could run through. The threat of the run opened up the play action passing game, which made the QB’s job very easy with simple reads on play action. It’s an offense that is largely idiot-proof and can make almost any QB look good, as the 49ers are proving with Jimmy Garoppolo and the Vikings are proving with Kirk Cousins (the Vikings run Gary Kubiak’s offense, which is a relative of the Shanahan offense from when Kubiak worked with Mike Shanahan in Denver). As a result, I don’t think most Redskins fans at the time thought the QB coach (LaFleur) had too much to do with the success of the offense. In retrospect though, he must have done a pretty good job, or Kyle Shanahan wouldn’t have brought him to Atlanta and Sean McVay wouldn’t have brought him to LA.

We’d like to thank Andrew. Be sure to check out the rest of our Q&A session with Hogs Haven over the course of the week as well as our Q&A session over there. As always, keep your internet machines tuned to Acme Packing Company this Sunday for our comprehensive game-day coverage of Washington versus Green Bay.