Tom Clements’ Packers legacy: Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, Jordan Love

GREEN BAY, Wis. – He eats the same thing every day. He almost won a Heisman Trophy. He won two Gray Cup championships in the Canadian Football League. He practiced law for four years before two historic figures, Lou Holtz and Mike Ditka, introduced him to the world of coaching. His sense of humor is drier than that of the Atacama Desert. And his wife is a Hollywood interior designer.

No, Tom Clements was never in a beer commercial, but quarterback Aaron Rodgers once borrowed a phrase from a fictional character in one of those commercials when he said, “He's like the most interesting man in the world.

Or at least the most interesting man on the Green Bay Packers coaching staff.

And Clements holds that distinction, too: He's the only person to directly coach Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love.

At 70, he's in his second stint as the Packers' quarterbacks coach, and although he returned last season at Rodgers' request, his return could have helped set Love on a path to success .

Clements' history with Packers quarterbacks is as follows: he was Favre's quarterbacks coach during his final two seasons in Green Bay (2006-07), worked with Rodgers as as coach or coordinator of his position from 2008 to 2016, then came out of retirement. to join him in 2022. He remained with the team in 2023 to help Love transition to the starting job.

When asked what brought him back to Green Bay last spring, Clements deadpanned: “Delta.” Like in the airline.

Some — including Packers coach Matt LaFleur — wondered whether Clements might leave town when it became clear that Rodgers would be traded to the Jets this past offseason.

Instead, he stayed to continue his work with Love, whose improvements have helped the Packers (6-6) win three straight games heading into the “Monday Night Football” game against the New York Giants (8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN).

Asked how much longer he could see himself doing this, Clements deadpanned again: “At least during the Giants game.”

LaFleur hopes it will be much longer.

“As far as I'm concerned, if he wants to come back, he can,” LaFleur said in a recent interview with ESPN. “I would love to have him back. He's a great person. He's got great knowledge. He's a great team guy. The quarterbacks all love him and they believe in him. They believe he helps their game and makes them better.”

Clements' task with each of the Packers' three quarterbacks was different. When former Packers coach (now Dallas Cowboys coach) Mike McCarthy hired Clements to join his first Green Bay team in 2006, Favre had thrown 29 interceptions during a 4-12 2005 season that put end of Mike Sherman's tenure as head coach.

In the two years under McCarthy and Clements, Favre reduced his interceptions to 18 in 2006 and 15 in 2007, when the Packers reached the NFC Championship Game. Clements didn't try to change Favre's fundamentals. It was ingrained in him.

“Brett would listen,” Clements said in an interview with ESPN. “He was a coach's son, so he was trying to do it. If it worked for him, great. If it didn't work, then he would do it his way, which was understandable. With Brett, it was was just to try to help it happens on Sunday.

With Rodgers and Love, Clements started from scratch – literally when it came to their footwork.

“I've always said if you watch a quarterback's feet, you can tell if the throw is going to be accurate,” Clements said. “Aaron was a perfectionist. He wanted to do things the way we wanted them, so that's how it worked out.”

Clements didn't have as much time with Love, in part because offseason NFL rule changes limited the time he had to work with quarterbacks.

“Jordan's footwork is really what we've been working on, and I think he's bought into what we're trying to accomplish, and he's gotten better in that aspect,” Clements said. “So we’re working on that, and he’s gotten a lot better in that area.”

Neither LaFleur nor Love knew Clements personally before last year, but both knew him because of how often Rodgers raved about him.

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“Tom just understands the little things of the position and, so, every drill works on a specific thing,” Rodgers said last year upon Clements' return to the Packers. “And that’s really how I was able to refine my fundamentals and learn how to throw in rhythm and on time without making premeditated decisions – one of the mortal sins of being a quarterback.”

When LaFleur had an opening on his team after the 2021 season, he wondered if Clements might be interested. Clements was out of coaching after a two-year stint with the Arizona Cardinals (2019-20), when he worked with Kyler Murray during the No. 1 pick's first two seasons.

So while LaFleur was in Los Angeles for the NFL Honors event at the Super Bowl, he met Clements at a restaurant near his home and where his wife runs Clements Design. (Her client list includes Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, Adam Levine and Behati Prinsloo, Scooter and Yael Braun, Kris Jenner, Bruno Mars and Jennifer Lawrence, according to Architectural Digest.)

Clements never thought he would coach again after first leaving the Packers. In 2015, McCarthy made Clements the offensive player only to take over the role at the end of that season. Clements returned for one more year as associate head coach/offense before leaving. He said he tried to find another job after the 2016 season, but nothing came to fruition.

He returned to Los Angeles and began working with a friend who ran a real estate development company. Two years later, then-Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury called Clements on the recommendation of David Raih, who had worked with Clements in Green Bay and later joined the Cardinals staff. After two years in Arizona, where he helped Murray become an Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2019 and a Pro Bowler in 2020, Clements thought he was done.

If he thought he was retired after his first stint in Green Bay, then he was — as he put it — “retired, retired” after the Cardinals.

Clements never even imagined himself becoming a coach. Although he finished fourth in Heisman Trophy voting in 1974 as Notre Dame's quarterback, he did not immediately attract the attention of the NFL. So he went to the CFL. After four years in Canada, he got a chance with the Kansas City Chiefs in 1980. He played in one game, completing 7 of 12 passes for 77 yards in an early-season loss to the San Diego Chargers, then returned to the CFL. .

It was also in 1980 that he decided to study law part-time. He earned his law degree from Notre Dame in 1986, a year before his CFL playing career ended.

Clements then worked for four years at a law firm in Chicago that handled corporate law.

“The more I did it,” Clements said, “the less I liked it.”

He then inquired about a football job at his alma mater and, sure enough, Holtz hired him to coach quarterbacks. After four years, he got the chance to coach in the NFL, thanks to Ditka, who had just accepted the job with the New Orleans Saints. The connection was to Clements' wife, Kathleen, who worked for Ditka's charitable foundation when they lived in Chicago.

“I just said, ‘If you ever come back, I’d like to coach with you,’” Clements said. “And he came back, and he called me, and the rest is history.”

Eventually, he worked for the Chiefs, Steelers and Bills before arriving in Green Bay with McCarthy.

“Tom is probably one of the easiest, smartest coaches I’ve ever worked with,” McCarthy said. “So consistent. Same guy every day. Eats the same thing every day.”

Wait what?

Sure enough, Clements confirmed it – at least for breakfast and lunch: “Some form of eggs – scrambled or fried – and bacon. Usually just a sandwich for lunch. »

“Tom is super, super consistent, and I think that serves any quarterback well,” McCarthy said. “I can't speak to exactly what's going on there right now, but I think it probably serves Jordan very well.”

Clements would never say if he lovingly saw this coming – the sudden improvement over the past month that has many now believing he's the long-term answer at quarterback – because with Clements, it’s more about the process than the end result.

“Tom gets to the point,” Love said. “He'll coach you, tell you exactly what you need to hear, coach you by the rules. If you don't do it right, he'll tell you, that's exactly how you should do it. Tom is a man relaxed. -the back. He will respect the rules, and if you do a good job, he will shake your hand and say: good job. But if you don't do it correctly, he will leave you I know that too. “

Those unhappy with Rodgers for the way he handled his departure from the Packers might consider that he left them a parting gift in Clements that could help the franchise for another decade and more if Love continues this way.

“It's no secret; Tom knows what he's doing,” Packers rookie quarterback Sean Clifford said. “Alex [McGough, who’s on the practice squad] and I talked about it all the time. I feel like I'm improving dramatically with Tom, and that's just in practice and just outside of scout team stuff. So it's great. It's amazing to have it.

“I mean, look [his résumé]: Brett Favre, one of the best quarterbacks of all time. Aaron Rodgers, still one of the best quarterbacks of all time. And Jordan Love is currently playing at the level of the best quarterbacks in the NFL and is only getting better every week. »