GREEN BAY – Someday Matt LaFleur wants to join the list of head coaches who have won Super Bowls, and he'll pursue that goal as relentlessly as he can.
Until he achieves it, he'll have to settle for having a pretty darn good record against coaches who have won Super Bowls, as he faces another one Sunday in Doug Pederson, coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Pederson, the former Packers backup QB, won a Super Bowl as head coach of the Eagles in the 2017 season. Since then, he and LaFleur have matched up twice, splitting the two games (Philadelphia won in 2019, Green Bay won in 2020).
All told, LaFleur is 13-5 against Super Bowl-winning head coaches – counting matchups after those coaches won a Super Bowl, not before.
The record breaks down as follows: 3-0 vs. Sean McVay; 2-0 vs. both Pete Carroll and Mike McCarthy (including a playoff win against each); 1-0 vs. both Bill Belichick and John Harbaugh; 1-1 vs. Andy Reid, Mike Tomlin and Pederson; and 1-2 vs. Sean Payton.
Payton is the only one, prior to Pederson on Sunday, whom LaFleur has coached against with multiple teams. Payton coached the Saints to a split of two games vs. the Packers in 2020 and '21, and then beat them with the Broncos last season.
Barring coaching changes around the league, the Packers and LaFleur are scheduled to face Baltimore/Harbaugh, Dallas/McCarthy and Pittsburgh/Tomlin again next season. Green Bay also will face one team from the AFC West, which could be Kansas City/Reid or Denver/Payton again, and one team from the NFC West, which could be L.A. Rams/McVay again, depending on where teams finish in their respective division standings in 2024.
On another note, quarterback Jordan Love has his own impressive mark he's looking to build upon Sunday vs. the Jaguars.
Love has thrown two or more touchdown passes in nine consecutive regular-season games, dating back to last year. As he looks to extend the streak to double digits, he has a chance to join some elite company.
According to NFL Research, if Love's streak reaches 10 games, he'll become just the fourth QB in league history with two-plus TD passes in 10 or more consecutive games before turning 26 years old.
The others are Patrick Mahomes (14 games, 2018-19), former Packers great Brett Favre (12, '94-95), and Dan Marino (10, 1984). Love will turn 26 next week.
Favre's streak of 12, which wrapped up during the first of his three MVP seasons in 1995, is the second longest in franchise history. Aaron Rodgers holds the team record with a streak of 13, which occurred over the first 13 games of 2011, when he won the first of his four MVPs.
Love's streak started in Week 15 last season. If playoffs are included, the streak of two-plus TD passes is actually at 11 games, as he threw three TDs in the wild-card win over Dallas last January and then two more in the divisional loss at San Francisco.
When playoffs are included, only two QBs in the league have a double-digit streak of two-plus TD passes since 2020 – Mahomes and Tom Brady.
