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GREEN BAY — Turns out, John Schneider wasn’t the only one who believed Sean Mannion was destined to coach. Matt LaFleur thought so, too.
And apparently, so did the Chicago Bears.
During one of Mannion’s three stints with the Seattle Seahawks over his nine-year NFL playing career, Schneider, the Seahawks general manager and a longtime Green Bay Packers executive, predicted that Mannion was “probably going to end up being a head coach in this league at some point. He’s a guy that is like another coach in the room.”
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But if anyone had dibs on Mannion’s second act in football, it was LaFleur, the Packers coach whose first exposure to Mannion was as the Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator in 2017, when Mannion was backing up starter Jared Goff.
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Sean Mannion was a backup quarterback with the Los Angeles Rams in 2017 when Matt LaFleur was the team’s offensive coordinator.
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“I love his past experience, (and) I always figured he was going to go down this route,” said LaFleur, who hired Mannion earlier this month but spoke about his hiring for the first time earlier this week, when he introduced new defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley.
The Packers have yet to officially announce Mannion’s hiring — or any of their other coaching additions beyond Hafley, for that matter — and as of Friday afternoon, the team’s website had not updated the coaching staff page with any changes beyond Hafley replacing Joe Barry.
But LaFleur said Mannion will have the title of “offensive assistant” and will work primarily in the quarterback room with quarterbacks coach Tom Clements, starting quarterback Jordan Love and backups Sean Clifford and Alex McGough.
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Mannion has yet to speak with reporters, but he told The Seattle Times in 2022 that coaching was a goal for him — whenever his playing career came to an end.
“I plan on playing for as long as they allow me to, as long as I can do it,” said Mannion, a former third-round pick who spent most of his career as a backup, playing in 14 games with three career starts. “Coaching is a field I plan on getting into whenever I’m done playing, but we’ll see. That would be an unbelievable opportunity.”
That opportunity will come with the Packers, and it was set in motion when the Packers played the Minnesota Vikings on Oct. 29 at Lambeau Field — with Mannion on the Vikings’ practice squad. LaFleur sought Mannion out that day to make sure his post-playing days goals hadn’t changed.
“When we played ’em earlier in the year, he told me he was going to get into coaching. So I was like, ‘Well, let me know when you’re going to become a coach,’” LaFleur recounted. “He’s just a guy that I’ve always respected how he went about his process, how he prepared for games, how he helped Jared in that situation (with the Rams) being a backup for us.”
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There was only one problem: The Bears were thinking the same way.
So, while LaFleur, in the wake of the team’s Jan. 20 NFC divisional playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers, was avoiding watching the subsequent NFC Championship Game between the 49ers and Detroit Lions, Mannion was getting set to travel to Chicago to meet with Bears head coach Matt Eberflus and new offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, who’d coached Mannion with the Seahawks.
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“He was getting ready to go interview for Chicago, and during the NFC Championship Game — which I really didn’t care to watch — I jumped on a Zoom call with him in the second half,” LaFleur recalled. “He showed me what he was going to present (to the Bears), and I told him, ‘Wow, that’s pretty good. I think you should come up to Green Bay right when you’re done with that interview.’
“I’m surprised that they let him out of the building. They tried to get him, but I guess we had more to offer.”
While LaFleur didn’t say if he made Mannion any promises, one of those things the Packers might’ve had to offer Mannion that the Bears didn’t was the chance to become the quarterbacks coach in the not-too-distant future.
Although LaFleur was thrilled when Clements, who’ll turn 71 in June, agreed to return for a third season on the staff, Clements was non-committal late in the year about returning in 2024, saying he was taking a year-by-year approach to his coaching future.
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While Clements eventually did decide to return, it’s unlikely he’ll keep coaching for longer than another season or two. That would allow Mannion to learn from an expert who holds the distinction of being the only coach to have coached Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers and Love, and allow him to develop a connection with Love if/when he would take over for Clements.
For now, though, LaFleur is just happy to have Mannion on his staff — and not coaching against him with the Bears.
“We’re lucky to have him,” LaFleur said. “I really do think this guy’s going to have a bright future for us and certainly in the coaching profession.”
