The Ben Johnson-Matt LaFleur beef is now bleeding into the divisional round and bringing Sean McVay into the fray.
The Bears are set to face the Rams on Sunday night, and if the past few days — after the Bears coach’s explosive celebration for defeating rival Packers in the wild-card round — have shown anything, there might be the right ingredients for a spicy matchup.
Following a close 31-27 win over Green Bay, Johnson hardly gave his attention and care to shaking LaFleur’s hand before bursting into the locker room and yelling “F–k the Packers, man! F–k them. F–king hate those guys,” as was shown by the team’s official social media accounts.
ESPN NFL analyst Peter Schrager reported this act “did not go over well” around the league and within the McVay camp.
The Rams coach is very close with LaFleur, and on top of that, the Rams’ offensive coordinator is Mike LaFleur, who happens to be Matt LaFleur’s younger brother.
“The utter disrespect and the brazen locker room video where you’re saying ‘F the Packers. F that coaching staff’, and the social media team clicks go. Send it. Put it out into the world,” Schrager told The Ringer on Friday. “And the next day with 24 hours to really think about it, to say, ‘No, I’m fine with what I said and my owners got my back on that too.’ This is the WWE part of this where there’s actual personalities involved.
“I think McVay wants to kick the snot out of Ben Johnson and I think Ben Johnson, who has beaten McVay the last two times when Detroit played the Rams, has no problem with that. I’ll beat the snot out of you. I love these two guys. Two alpha offensive minds going at it in this game. I can’t wait.”
The divisional matchup has seemingly turned personal, and that was more evident following the Rams’ press conference on Friday.
As both teams prepare for the next round, McVay was asked if he’d been in contact with the Packers head coach, who has played Johnson on three different occasions this season and could provide some extra insight.
To that, McVay only smirked and said, “What would you guess? No, you know what — we watch the tape, we do our work, and Matt is a very close friend of mine.”
McVay and LaFleur previously worked together on Washington’s staff, and when the former moved on to be at the helm of the Rams, he took LaFleur with him to be his offensive coordinator for the 2017 season.
The last two times Johnson, who was with the Lions as their offensive coordinator at the time, and McVay faced off, the former was victorious.
In 2024, the Lions got the best of the Rams in a season-opener overtime thriller, 26-20, and in the year prior, McVay lost in the wild-card round in a close 24-23 defeat.
McVay will look to finish the job LaFleur failed to do on Sunday night.
