Sometimes, it’s the moves you don’t get to make that are the best ones you have ever (or never) made. This was the case for the Green Bay Packers in 2019, when they were looking to replace recently fired head coach Mike McCarthy.
Per Tom Silverstein of PackersNews.com, Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy, who hired Fitzgerald to be Northwestern’s head coach in 2006 when he was the athletic director there, made serious overtures to Fitzgerald in 2019 to see if they could pry him loose. As it turned out, Fitzgerald’s loyalty to the program — and the 10-year, $57 million contract extension he received in January, 2020 — won the day.
Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst was thought to also be an admirer of Fitzgerald’s coaching style and ability to create a culture. In the end, Fitzgerald never interviewed for the job, but the interest was certainly there.
Of course, those alleged attributes have come into serious question over the last week, as a series of bombshell reports by the student staff of the Daily Northwestern. Fitzgerald was fired on Monday after it was revealed that Fitzgerald knew of hazing, sexual assault, and racism in the Northwestern football program, and may have facilitated it to a greater or lesser degree.
In the end, the Packers had to “settle” for Matt LaFleur, who had most recently been the offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams in 2017, and the Tennessee Titans in 2018. All LaFleur has done since then is to amass a 47-19 regular-season record, and a 2-3 mark in the postseason. LaFleur’s regular-season winning percentage of .712 ties him with George Allen for the fourth-best in NFL history, behind only Guy Chamberlain, John Madden, and Vince Lombardi.
Based on what we now know, it’s tough to imagine Fitzgerald having the same level of success in the NFL.
