It’s playoff time, baby! The Chicago Bears have their first home playoff game in 7 years, and lo and behold, the Green Bay Packers happen to be the team that falls to the Bears’ opponent on the bracket.
It’s only the third time the Bears and Packers will meet in the postseason, and they are tied at 1 in postseason matchups and tied at 1 for this season’s matchups. It’s officially the rubber match between the NFL’s premier franchises!
To get you set for this one, we sat down with Justis Mosqueda from Acme Packing Co. (SB Nation’s Green Bay Packers site) to get the Packers’ perspective on this one.
1. Let’s just cut through the fat: Do you think Matt LaFleur is coaching for his job on Saturday? If he’s let go, do you think John Harbaugh would be at the top of Green Bay’s wish list?
Long answer that takes a lot of explaining, but I do not.
NFL teams operate to make money, but not to make a profit in this era. This has caused spending on players and non-players to go up big time, despite it not really being financially smart from an ROI standpoint. Unfortunately, the Packers haven’t attracted the same volume of non-football events at the stadium that other clubs are tapping into (which is a big deal from a cash flow perspective), and they can’t ever tap into the franchise valuation (they can’t ever sell, and that’s where the real money is).
The primary driver of spend right now is speculative growth of franchise valuation. It took the NFL until 2014 to get its first billion-dollar franchise sale (the Buffalo Bills). That was 95 years into the league. San Francisco’s club was just valued at $8.5 billion a decade later. Inflation moved from 2014 to 2025…but it sure didn’t move that fast. That’s why the ultra-rich and private equity are bending over backwards to get into this league.
The Packers added $76 million to their “rainy day fund” (what they make post-expenses, even after selling out every game) last year, which sounds like a lot…until you compare it to the valuations. If you bought the Packers at the 49ers’ valuation (it might be less because of the cost of living, etc., in the Bay Area, but not by like 25% or anything), it would take the rainy day fund 114 years to match a franchise valuation. So why are owners so eager to buy such expensive investments that have such poor ROI? Speculative franchise valuation growth! They’re buying the team not to be a business; they’re buying it because one day someone will pay them X times more for it. These are the most expensive Pokémon cards (or insert whatever other collectible you want here) in the world. The goal is to make money (so you don’t have to tap into ownership’s cash flow, essentially to do no harm) but not make a profit (because investing money back into the franchise makes the franchise valuation go brrrrr even faster.)
So while the 49ers can top spend across the board and can get over a $500 million cash infusion from private equity for a 6 percent sell, that will never be the case in Green Bay. The Packers are tasked with the unique position of: How would you run a club financially if prices primarily rose because of speculative franchise growth, but you, personally, never had the option to sell? And you’re competing with the teams that can tap into it at the same time.
From the reporting, it sounds like both LaFleur and the Packers want to keep their relationship going, but money is the hang-up. Coaching spend has always been the problem in Green Bay, usually at the assistant level. They are a middle-spend team on players and above average spend on the front office, but coach spend has always lagged.
When LaFleur was hired in 2019, he made $5 million per year and was paired with a defensive staff that was a holdover from the McCarthy staff, because the team didn’t want to pay buyouts for everyone across the board just to then pay another staff on top of that (coaches’ deals are guaranteed). Now, I’ve been told reliably that LaFleur is making less than either Ben Johnson or Liam Coen, who signed at those numbers before ever having been a head coach in an NFL game.
The market-capture that is the TitleTown District, the events (soccer, college football, etc.) and the success that was the draft was supposed to sort of usher in this new era of where the Packers were actually supposed to be competitive in coaching spend (beyond defensive coordinator, the one spot where they’ve consistently spend since the new team administration really has a throughline since 1991 with the hiring of Ron Wolf).
So to hear that it’s about the money, not the coach…Yeah, I believe that. And that’s worrisome. I think at minimum, LaFleur will coach the team in 2026 (they’re paying him either way, why pay two coach salaries), if there is no extension done (the team just needs to grow up and pay the money). What will be hard, though, is backfilling the staff once Jeff Hafley leaves for a HC job (and probably takes some people with him) when the team doesn’t pay for assistants, and if the head coach (and everyone else) is on a one-year deal. That’s the nightmare scenario right now.
Side note: These spending patterns are also why the Bears are adamant on building a dome, be it north or east of Soldier Field. If you can, you should use a stadium to host as many events as possible. That’s the game at the ownership level.
To me, this is the biggest story in the NFL right now. I think you’re going to hear a lot more about it during league meetings this offseason. There is a growing have and have-not class at the ownership level, and also a want-to and do not want to class. It’s going to define the league pretty quickly as they grow further apart.
It’s not about LaFleur’s performance; it’s about the money. The Packers have been cheap on coaching to fund player and front office spend for 30+ years now. Franchise valuations, not profits, are driving recent spending on just about everything in the NFL, but Green Bay can’t tap into their franchise valuation. Even if LaFleur doesn’t get an extension (I think he ultimately does, eventually), I don’t think the team has much of an interest in cutting him a year early (which they still have to pay) just to hire a new staff on top of that.
I also don’t think the Packers will go the Harbaugh route, because Harbaugh either 1) won’t be offered the type of money that will get him to say yes (he was paid $17 million per year by the Ravens and might get a raise off hitting the open market) or 2) the type of staff he wants to make won’t say yes to the type of deals Green Bay wants at the coaching level.
2. Let me ask you about the hit Austin Booker put on Jordan Love that caused his concussion. Did you think the hit was dirty? It’s been quite contentious on social media between Bears and Packers fans. My view: I thought Booker led with his crown more than he should have and deserved to be fined, but I think the concussion was a result of Love ducking and lowering his head before the hit.
Pretty bang bang play that I’ve seen a lot of in the NFL. I wouldn’t call it dirty. Do I like that it happened? No. Do I have eyes and see that Jordan also dropped his head, too, something that’s extremely common when you’re bracing for impact? Yes. Just more of an unfortunate play than anything to me. I don’t think there was intent, and I get that the NFL isn’t in the business of intent when it comes to flags/fines for player brain safety, but I don’t think Booker was trying to do anything there. The Burden choking of Keisean Nixon…that’s a different story to me.
3. Do you have any concerns about Jordan Love being rusty on Saturday?
Not really, to be honest. The Packers said they gave Love a full load of starter reps in practice last week, despite the starters not playing against the Minnesota Vikings. Yes, we threw Clayton Tune, who has already been replaced as QB3, to the wolves with no practice against Brian Flores with backups on the line and skill positions. -7 net passing yards didn’t happen by accident.
I’ve never seen an organization commit so deeply to not putting anyone at risk in Week 18 and just focusing on the wild-card round a week early. Depending on what you count as a roster move, Green Bay has made 29-33 roster moves over the last two weeks so that they could aggressively keep anyone worth a damn from playing against the Vikings. It’s been hilarious to watch and track.
4. It’s going to be cold and potentially quite windy (and maybe even some snow) on Saturday night. Do you think the elements would impact how Green Bay would want to approach this game?
It could! Josh Jacobs finally seems healthy for the first time since he went down against the New York Giants, so getting that boost in the run game would be nice in a snow scenario. There was that one slant Love threw in the red zone last time where the wind just took it away, and it cost us points, though, so it’s not like Soldier Field was exactly calm the last time we were there, either.
Keep an eye on our punter Daniel Whelan. He didn’t make the Pro Bowl, but he might end up first-team All-Pro after leading the league in the punting metrics this year. Absolute cannon of a leg that cuts through wind (does it in Green Bay, did it in New York, but didn’t have a punt in Chicago last time). He ended up having 431 punt yards against the Vikings last week when it was all said and done. That game was anti-football.
5. Who do you think advances to the divisional round? Give us a prediction.
I’m going Packers. I felt like the score shouldn’t have been so close in the first game. It took us blowing off our leg with a shotgun and then reloading and blowing the other one off, too, to lose Game 2. I can’t believe we went 1-1 when you guys never had the lead for a second of regulation in either game, but it’s sort of been that type of a year for Green Bay. We’ve managed to lose three games where we haven’t punted this year, becoming the first team to do so in NFL history.
I feel good about Green Bay’s ability to score. It’s going to come down to whether we’re able to stop your run game or not.
