Aaron Rodgers and Matt LaFleur: The Packers' Boom-or-Bust Chemistry Experiment

Matt LaFleur needs to buy Aaron Rodgers a beer as soon as possible.

LaFleur, Green Bay's new head coach, was Atlanta's quarterbacks coach in 2015-16. That means he was around for the Great Sudsy Summit between Matt Ryan and Kyle Shanahan.

As NFL.com's Michael Silver told the tale in the days leading up to Super Bowl LI, Ryan and Shanahan weren't seeing eye to eye on the field or off after a disappointing 2015 season. So "we just worked it out over a couple of beers," Shanahan told Silver. "He learned what works for me, and I learned what works for him, and it was that simple. And we're in a really, really good place now."

A few drinks and some traditional male bonding later, Ryan went from a 16-interception season to league MVP, and the Falcons climbed from 8-8 to…let's end this tale with them happily leading the Patriots 28-3 in the Super Bowl.

The Shanahan-Ryan rift was (per Silver) overblown, though most rifts are said to be overblown after they're mended. And maybe the coach and quarterback didn't really pass play diagrams back and forth on cocktail napkins like Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin dividing up Europe at Yalta. There was more to the Falcons' Super Bowl run than just straight talk over a pitcher and wings.

But the Shanahan-Ryan Happy Hour Armistice should serve as a helpful reminder to LaFleur that the relationship between a wunderkind coach and a veteran franchise quarterback is fragile, and nurturing it is more important than any of the squiggles and arrows in the playbook.

Especially when the quarterback just sent a successful, long-tenured coach packing in midseason. And the new coach is a 39-year-old novice with almost no track record.

Let's be honest: I do this for a living, yet I don't know LaFleur from the guy who played Joey in Friends. Neither do you, and neither do 99 percent of the experts and analysts out there who are calling him a budding genius or an off-brand Sean McVay wannabe based on his Wikipedia page.

LaFleur's portfolio is so scant that it's easy to imagine a scenario where Mark Murphy and the rest of the Packers brain trust clamored for The Next McVay—then got sidetracked and settled for The Guy Next to McVay.

LaFleur attended Papa Shanahan's Coaching Clinic and Day Care Center in Washington from 2010 to 2013. He tutored under Mike Shanahan alongside fellow junior achievers Kyle Shanahan and McVay, holding the title of quarterbacks coach through the long, tumultuous Redskins epoch that started with Donovan McNabb and cycled through Rex Grossman, John Beck and Robert Griffin III before it landed unexpectedly on Kirk Cousins.

LaFleur spent a year on the Notre Dame staff when the Redskins finally grew bored of Papa Shanahan's boardroom power games and decided to try team president Bruce Allen's boardroom power games instead. He then followed Kyle to Atlanta as quarterbacks coach. When Kyle parlayed Ryan's MVP season and three great Super Bowl quarters into the 49ers' head coaching gig, LaFleur climbed aboard McVay's rocket ride to Next Big Thing status in Los Angeles for a year.

When the Rams' sudden rise to relevance created a seller's market for Mini McVays, LaFleur left the Shanahan coaching tree to serve as the Titans' offensive coordinator. The Titans finished 25th in yards and 27th in points this season—no doubt you have heard that by now from LaFleur skeptics—but Marcus Mariota battled multiple injuries and remained in the lineup with tingling in two fingers on his throwing hand for part of the year, making LaFleur's performance harder to grade than the stats suggest.

So LaFleur has been a bystander to a lot of history in his decade on NFL sidelines. But it's not clear how many responsibilities he handled in his various stops.

There's not much for a young assistant coach to do but talk about footwork when Mike Shanahan is waging a nonstop Cold War with the quarterbacks, their agents, their parents and his own bosses.

McVay, known for whispering in his quarterback's headset long after the huddle breaks while on the sidelines and scheming while the Rams defense is on the field, didn't appear to delegate much meaningful authority to his equally youthful offensive sidekick.

There's no word that LaFleur even tagged along when Shanahan and Ryan went out for brewskis in 2016.

So while we can all infer that LaFleur will run some version of the Shanahan/McVay offense, no one has any idea whether he was a major (but until now uncredited) collaborator in the Falcons' and Rams' success or someone who looks great when bathed in reflected glory—or what kind of leader he will be as a head coach.

No one, including Rodgers.

Rodgers spent the last few seasons turning his nose up at Mike McCarthy's game plans like a spoiled cat looking at a bowl of dry kibble. Rodgers is brilliant and indispensable, and he knows it—making him one of the least user-friendly quarterbacks in the NFL.

Making the Packers contenders again means not just improving Rodgers and the offense but also convincing Rodgers that he needs improvement after several years of watching all blame get ladled on McCarthy, the organization, the receivers and anyone else without a No. 12 on his jersey.

That's why many of us expected the Packers to seriously pursue a head coach who was either the quarterback-friendly equivalent of a bomb disposal specialist (Adam Gase, with his Peyton Manning letter of recommendation pinned to his chest) or someone willing to just detonate everything and see that happens (Josh McDaniels).

Instead, they are sending in the rookie.

Rodgers could feed the young coach to a skeptical media with a few well-placed interview barbs and watch us eat him alive. Or he could just blow off LaFleur's intricate new Shanahan-McVay-flavored play diagrams like he did McCarthy's blurry, fading 2010 Xeroxes and spend another year rolling his eyes, rolling out and pointing at his receivers.

LaFleur cannot afford to let any of that happen; otherwise he will be the coach who brought an end to the Rodgers era—make that an end to the quarter-century Rodgers-Brett Favre era of Hall of Fame quarterbacking in Green Bay—and ushered in a massive rebuilding phase that he won't be asked to be part of.

So we'll learn in the weeks to come what lessons LaFleur is bringing with him to Rodgers and the Packers.

Mike Shanahan's endless skullduggery never worked, but a little bit of head-butting might be a good thing if Rodgers starts acting like the valedictorian who is once again too smart for the teacher.

McVay's "whiz kid from IT" routine works better when the quarterback is 22 years old and Wade Phillips is running the defense as his own barbarian fiefdom. But LaFleur was hired to bring fresh ideas and energy, and a successful coach must be true to what got him to the top.

Kyle Shanahan briefly found the sweet spot in Atlanta, the place where ego and expectation management lined up with chalkboard creativity, and created a magical season—one that LaFleur will be seeking with Rodgers in Green Bay.

LaFleur needs to find that place, and fast, because neither the Packers, Rodgers nor their fans are likely to be patient.

Hence, the need for some beers, as soon as possible.

Mike Tanier covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeTanier.