Matt LaFleur received the Packers head coaching job right as I was wrapping up the day at work. After checking on a few things related to Bama-Clemson, my friend Eric sent a group chat a text of the tweet where Adam Schefter broke the news. From there, the reactions started to pour in about the choice. My drive isn’t a long one home, but it’s long enough to hear some reactions on the radio. Those were mostly positive. No one asked ‘What are they doing?’ or anything of that nature. Rather, people seemed genuinely excited about this hire. When you open Twitter last night, the national minds felt an opposite way. They made it seem like the Packers were trying to hire their Sean McVay. Why the difference?

In least surprising news ever, the national media didn’t do their homework. I know this is shocking, but yes, people rushed to Twitter to deliver takes without actually finding out facts. Crazy how that happens so often when all people would have to do is search on Wikipedia. The national media wants to paint a picture of LaFleur being a McVay guy. That’s accurate. They worked together in Washington and Los Angeles. People think that because LaFleur is tied to McVay that’s the reston he got hired with the Packers over the other candidates. Naturally, they’re only telling half of the story.

The friends of McVay is a key narrative to the coaching search in 2019. What fucks with that is when there are other coaching trees where a coach comes from. While running their mouth about him learning from McVay, they forget that he worked with Kyle Shanahan and his father. Yes, old man Shanahan would have been an awful coach in 2018, but he still a bright mind. Same goes for his son. That gets lost in the the conversation because it’s not convenient to the narrative of LaFleur being just a McVay guy.

Another part of this equation where the national media got things wrong is looking at the Tennessee offense this year. LaFleur didn’t really get the best out Marcus Mariota, and part of that was due to having him healthy for only part of the year. Mariota cannot seem to be at full strength all year. The deck was stacked against Tennessee’s offense with Delanie Walker out, Mariota in and out and the receiving core being one of the worst in football. Still, LaFleur helped them be average and put over 30 points up against both Dallas and New England.

The national pundits got it wrong, and that’s okay. I look forward to serving crow around mid-November when the Packers are making a playoff run.

Charlie.