Davante knows how I feel about him, LaFleur says. I want to be held accountable, Rodgers says. He's going to be the guy in the huddle and he's got to be an extension of us. McDaniel said that with everyone in their 20s or early 30s, with no kids, coaches worked 20-hour days just to get Kyle Shanahans workplace affection. Its going to be more of a group effort.. Lafleur started a text conversation with Rodgers during his telecast and nearly responded by Facetiming him on live television. Were going to have to add some bodies to that room, coach Matt LaFleur said last month at the NFLs owners meetings. Im going through that with my own kids right now., As a kid, LaFleurs mom took him to Central Michigan practices, but he said he didnt soak it in as much as he could have. LaFleur took over for the Green Bay Packers' former head coach, Mike McCarthy, in . Matt never told me this, I didnt find it out until years later, McDaniel said. Green Bay needed someone to add depth to the quarterback spot behind Love and while Clifford may not have been the ideal selection then, the Packers see something in him that might serve him well as a backup. He also saw that LaFleur was humble enough to ask any question and bold enough to push for answers. The affection Rodgers has for his head coach is evident in the way he makes fun of him publicly. I definitely spent my time on the sticks, he says. What I put on film yesterday and what I want to put on film today.. But the results are good., LaFleur has blended this offense with the best plays from McCarthys playbook, at Rodgerss request, the result of an exhaustive and collaborative effort to make the quarterback feel as comfortable as possible. From MACtion, I learned you better have a quarterback, he said. Where LaFleur calls home, there are championships and there are failures and not much between. Something went wrong. With all the trust I have with everybody, I would like to think Ive chilled out a little bit, LaFleur says. Aaron audibles a lot. Bill Bender joins Craig to discuss who he believes could be the first tight end drafted at this year's NFL Draft. The way he does it is organic and yet purposeful. So, too, is the quarterback-coach relationship. Its not about credentials at that point. Like I told him, the beauty of this game is winning is a hell of a lot of fun, but its about the relationships you make. LaFleur has not indicated, at any point, that he wants acknowledgment for what the Packers have achieved with him at the helm. Go to where you feel you can get a big pass play. But they worked on it. LaFleur said almost nothing publicly about the controversy during the season, sidestepping questions. I wasted a lot of my life playing. I explain that I dont think it was a waste, as were sitting on a training table in the massive indoor practice facility of the team hes led to 39 wins in three years. In three seasons together, LaFleur and Rodgers have won 13 games three times and reached the NFC championship game twice. Packers' Matt LaFleur leads with grace through Aaron Rodgers' COVID-19 You have to learn from every situation you are in, LaFleur says. I want them to feel part of a team. Sometimes these lessons go the other way. I put it to nearly everyone I spoke with for this story: Why doesnt LaFleur get as many plaudits as he should? LaFleur takes his hat and starts to sign the bill before the man asks him to sign the front. Clements is another spoke in the Packers wheel. Certainly we made our fair share of mistakes because they made plays and we didnt. And then last year against the 49ers in the divisional round: Obviously our defense balled out and we didnt play up to our standard offensively or on special teams., LaFleur said hes talked often with McVay about the playoffs. Thats not just because he has to problem-solve an offense without one of the best receivers in football, but because he is entering Year 4 with one of the best quarterbacks of all time and they have yet to make a Super Bowl appearance. LaFleur visited Rodgers in California a second time in 2021 before Rodgers acquiesced to playing for the Packers last season. Is he trying to get under my skin to rile me up? I tried to play a poker face as best I could, but internally, my heart might have skipped a beat or two. LaFleur said the jokes came from multiple guests at the wedding. Maybe (Lukas) Van Ness from Iowa winds up falling to 15. Matt LaFleur: 'We're gonna find out a lot about ourselves moving forward' Last year he lost to Mike Vrabel by 28 votes, and the prior two years he didnt even finish second. Its not why we were there. Dan Pompei is a senior writer for The Athletic who has been telling NFL stories for close to four decades. It is unprecedented turnover in this new era of loosened . A relationship that falters, even for one series in one game, can alter the course of the franchise forever. "I don't really anticipate a whole . And he was still so spooked when he returned to Green Bay that he talked to offensive coordinator Adam Stenavich about it. Rodgers asked if he could speak with Clements first, and he subsequently began the recruiting process. Matt LaFleur Fully Supporting Jordan Love As Franchise Quarterback video Total Packers with Matt. We just named a quarterback assistant, Connor Lewis. Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst, president Mark Murphy and director of football operations Russ Ball also were involved in the discussions. Then when passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Luke Getsy resigned to become offensive coordinator of the Bears, LaFleur told Rodgers he wanted to talk to Clements. Copyright IBTimes 2023. Also at the wedding was Packers coach Matt LaFleur, who had the opportunity at the reception to lead Rodgers to the bar, offer him something strong and straight up, and make a pitch for Rodgers to come home with him. Packers' Matt LaFleur will coach NFC at 2022 Pro Bowl All in all, the Packers have retooled their roster to better fit Love's skill sets and it will only be a matter of time before that manifests into something big. But the team that plays the best in that three-hour window wins, he told me. For others, they are growth experiences. I really sit back and think, here we are, with the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League. McDaniel explained that in 2009, the Texans let him go after he overslept for a handful of meetings. Now, with the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft on Thursday the Packers could use the 13th pick (the reported compensation by Adam Schefter for the Aaron Rodgers trade) on another edge rusher or, at the very least, figure to pick one during Day 2. 1: Team first. Matt will get excited, but hes able to assess situations and not get too carried away. He guesses that if he called him 20 minutes before a Packers game and hes got a problem, LaFleur might skip the pregame speech. But even more drastic press conferences than that have taken place during his Packers tenure. We always thought hed be a perfect fit for the scheme. Eberflus, 52, and LaFleur first faced off in 2017, when LaFleur ran the Rams' offense and Eberflus was the Cowboys' linebackers coach and passing-defense coordinator. This, a handful of Packers told me, is the backbone of the team. (Its not.) The spring transfer period in college football closed Sunday night with 43 scholarship players -- the equivalent of half a roster -- from Sanders' program having entered the portal since more than 40,000 fans showed up at Folsom Field in Boulder for Colorado's spring game on April 15. The group effort means personnel and schemes. The interview was four hours and it felt like 15 minutes, Murphy said. The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported. He was cooking dal and kitchari. He asked Rodgers about him again this January. So it became a joke about how thankful he must be to have Bre do his eyebrows every single week so he looks his best on game day.. It might be the storywhy this all works. For some strange reason, LaFleur promoted from . That, in turn, forced Barry to blitz more to generate pressure, with limited success. Motion, fakes. You want to earn that trust, and then you want to keep it, Campbell said. LaFleur is the dad in the passenger seat with the 15-year-old with their temps. Aaron Rodgers is a problem, but Matt Eberflus must counter Matt LaFleur Despite all that was lost that day, more trust was won. But privately, he extended a hand. There was also 10-Yard Fight, an obscure video game LaFleur loved as a kid, Tecmo Bowl, and, according to his brother, a lot of EA Sports NCAA Football. The three rules require trust because there is much left assumed with only three. Last years third-round pick was UCLA offensive lineman Sean Rhyan, who played one special teams snap and no offensive snaps as a rookie and was suspended the last six games of the season for violating the NFLs policy on performance-enhancers. Matt LaFleur Family & Children: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know The Packers also have one pick each in the second, third and fourth rounds, two picks in the fifth and four in the seventh. The most recent tight end the Packers picked in the first round was Miamis Bubba Franks, who went 14th overall in 2000. Green Bay has been the center of the media circus a handful of times over the past two years: Rodgerss will-he-or-wont-he controversies about retirement and trade demands, or his positive COVID test last season which led to the revelation that Rodgers was not vaccinated. It was another to earn the trust of an independent-minded, future Hall of Fame quarterback who reputedly could be as cold as a Lambeau Field goal post in January. Total Packers with Matt LaFleur: Rasul Douglas - Green Bay Packers And the team has playmakers in other offensive positions, like running backs Aaron Jones and A.J. This week's guest DL Jarran Reed. Now hes all swaggy. LaFleur was the Titans offensive coordinator by then, but Rodgers recalled how much he loved those concepts when LaFleurs staff first came in. The coach-quarterback relationship ultimately helped LaFleur build trust with his entire team. He was just very humble and such a perfectionist at that point in his career that it made him really mad when he didnt know things. The pro game, McDaniel said, was a specific world compared to other levels of football, and the other staff members in Houston were deeply rooted in it. What Rodgers didnt know was that LaFleur was listening to the broadcast while game-planning. To me, if edge is a priority, thats probably where youre going to get your best value (at 15), McShay said. While boarding the team plane to Minneapolis, he wore a shirt with LaFleurs likeness that read, OUR COACH IS HOTTER THAN YOURS., He frequently jokes about LaFleurs lush eyebrows. First of all, he's earned the respect of his actionsthe way he worksfrom all his teammates, I would say. Matt is a big part of that puzzle of why to get up every morning, Lewis said. I promise you [the other team is] colder than we are. GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) Aaron Rodgers might not be the only longtime Packer heading out of Green Bay. Aaron is a great player, said Mark Murphy, the teams president and CEO. His name was Kyle Shanahan, and hed been promoted from quarterbacks coach under Gary Kubiak. But the Packers never used a first-round pick on a wide receiver or tight end throughout four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers 18 seasons in Green Bay. A lot of people would be like yes, sirand he was very very respectful, but he would ask why, McDaniel said. He was certain of that by the time he left campus that day in 2014. Dillon give the Packers one of the NFLs top running back tandems. There should be many more opportunities for the 42-year-old LaFleur, with or without the 38-year-old Rodgers. Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur turned down a chance to make the Super Bowl. Im in Green Bay to find out why more people dont say that. The week after the Saturday Christmas Day game, the Packers had an extra practice scheduled. He is, entering his fourth year, the longest-tenured head coach in his division, no doubt a byproduct of his rivals inability to reliably beat him. Great hairline, great smile, and he dresses sharp.. Not saying theyre gonna learn anything, but I didnt take advantage of that time., I didnt learn ball ball until I got to the National Football League, he said. That is special, really special.. The best coaches push you to do things that youre uncomfortable with, Ryan says. I am not trying to compete with anybody else in the league. LaFleurs coaching staff has changed more than in any year since he was named head coach, with four additions and five promotions. So if LaFleur was mad about something Rodgers said or did, he would take it out on the backup quarterbacks. But what if youre playing against a defense that says all right and is gonna load up the box? As LaFleur transitions from the 2021 season to the beyond, there are wounds to heal, transitions to navigate and redemption to be won. Rodgers agrees, saying he has seen LaFleur loosen up and worry less about the little things. Packers' NFL draft picks suggest more change is on the way LaFleurs commitment to the Packers and Rodgers led to a spirit of cooperation from the quarterback. He creates an environment where he gets all the fluff out of the way and all that matters is studying the tape and getting the most out of players every single day..
