It was Week 2, and Malik Willis was the Green Bay Packers starting quarterback one week after Jordan Love had injured his knee in Brazil. Against the Indianapolis Colts, the Packers got the ball back with 100 seconds left. Head coach Matt LaFleur decided to run the ball three times with Josh Jacobs, getting a first down, but killing the clock.

When asked about the decision after the game, LaFleur was clear about his intentions.

"Some would call it conservative," LaFleur pointed out. "I would call it smart."

Based on the circumstances, it was fair to say that. In hindsight, though, perceiving how the entire season went, Matt LaFleur was uncharacteristically conservative in 2024. And that included everything. Offensive playcalling and, especially, decision-making.

Fourth-down calls

Analyst Ben Baldwin has a stat to evaluate when head coaches go for it on fourth down when it improves the team's win probability by at least 1.5%.

The Packers were eighth, right behind the Detroit Lions. Yes, LaFleur was in the same ballpark as Dan Campbell in fourth-down decisions.

This year, they went all the way down to 31st. And the Lions, guess what, went all the way up to first. Even in what you would think are similar circumstances compared to 2023, Matt LaFleur was only less conservative than Jim Harbaugh.

There are two marked differences. The defense improved under Jeff Hafley, but you could argue that having a better defense is actually an argument for being more aggressive, because if the offense fails to convert, the defense has a higher chance of taking the ball back—and when it's closer to the end zone, the defense has a better field position to work with.

The second difference is the kicker. Last year, the Packers massively struggled with rookie Anders Carlson, and this year they had a good level of consistency with veteran Brandon McManus from Week 7 on.

Is the kicker a reason big enough to turn the team into an old school conservative operation?

Offensive playcalling

Decisions to go on fourth down are not the only area in which Matt LaFleur was conservative. When it was time to call offensive plays, the Packers had an unusually low pass rate, even for LaFleur's standards.

LaFleur is historically a run-centric playcaller, based on his scheme and how he likes to marry run and pass concepts. That's why since he took over as the Packers head coach in 2019, he has fluctuated between 16th and 20th in pass rate. But it had always been something between 56% and 60%.

This year, the Packers ran the ball more than they passed for the first since 2003 (!). Only three teams did it in 2024. Curiously, all of them signed big-ticket running backs in free agency—the Packers, Baltimore Ravens, and Philadelphia Eagles.

Pass rate under Matt LaFleur:

2019: 59.81% (16th)
2020: 56.23% (20th)
2021: 58.61% (17th)
2022: 56.61% (18th)
2023: 57.02% (19th)
2024: 49.31% (30th)

Sure, the Packers had the equivalent of three games with Malik Willis, and two of them had heavier run rates. But even when Jordan Love was on the field, the pass rate was lower than it was in 2023.

Last season, Love averaged 34 pass attempts per game. In 2024, it went down to 28—even if you discount the Week 18 Chicago Bears game where he left early, he had 29.5 attempts per game. Josh Jacobs is part of that, probably, but the lack of ability to run from under center made it difficult for LaFleur to marry his pass and run plays as well as he used to.

"As far as under-center playaction, we ran the ball more out of the gun. The efficiency with which we ran the ball was night and day better out of the shotgun than it was under center," LaFleur admitted after the season. "That's kind of why we did what we did. Football evolves, and I'm not saying that we won't get back to doing our hard run sell."

Matt LaFleur tends to be a young and innovative head coach, and maybe this season was an outlier. In 2025, he will have the opportunity to show it was.

Pick by pick, Matt LaFleur explains what went wrong for Jordan Love and the Packers offense

Love threw three interceptions against the Eagles