The Football Integrity Mike LaFleur is Bringing to Cardinals Via His Personal Values and Adherence to Sean McVay's Distinctives

photo credit: nfl.com

By Walter Mitchell

Three of the coolest things that Mike LaFleur has said to the Arizona media this week are: (paraphrasing)

1. "It was an honor to have my family with me for my opening press conference, but I couldn't take my eyes off of the players in the back of the room; I cannot wait to get to work with them."

2. "I want everything we do each day to be about urgency." 

3. "The worst call is the late (play) call." 

Reactions to all three:

1. The only way for good teachers and coaches to build trust with their students and players is by developing a strong rapport with each one of them. This takes a lot of time and effort. It takes a whole lot of listening. My initial impression is that Mike LaFleur has a penchant and natural talent for building positive rapports with his players. 

2. The word "urgency" is the best word that Mike LaFleur can use to describe precisely what the Cardinals have lacked as an organization and as a football team. If you know Sean McVay, he is the ultimate supplier of urgency. Just watch him coach on the sidelines. And this week we have already garnered a great glimpse at the urgency in Mike LaFleur's eyes. 

3. Halleluiah. Been there, seen that plenty of times before. 

Reactions to the McVay Distinctives:

1, 2 and 7. Allusion of Complexity Offense, Simple on Players, Brutal of Defenses. Mike LaFleur's Cardinals are going to employ motions in ways we haven't seen much of before. This ties in perfectly with Directive #7. Use of motion is simple for players once they know and command the rules of it. So, what motion does, it puts pressure on the defense to react during the pre-snap. If no defender moves with the motion, the players and especially the QB know the defense is 95% of the time in some kind of zone coverage. This can often be brutal for defenses when they feel like they are tipping off their call on the play and thereby giving the offense a pre-snap advantage. And in today's NFL, good QBs, WRs and TEs customarily kick the sh^^ out of zones.

3. QB as Co-Coordinator. This is why Matthew Stafford may be on the verge of winning the 2025 NFL MVP Award at age 37. Several years ago, we had former Cardinals' backup QB Kyle Sloter on Red Rain and he told us that when he was with the Lions he learned more about making pre-snap "kills" and "protection changes" (to account for blitzes or alignment overloads) from Matthew Stafford than he had ever learned from any of his coaches. Kyle said that Stafford gets his OL better prepared than any QB in the NFL. It's for this reason that it would not be a surprise for year one to see Mike LaFleur sign Jimmy Garoppolo, who can help LeFleur coordinate the offense for the Cardinals' players and be a mentor to the younger QBs on the roster. Veterans like Aaron Rodgers, Jacoby Brissett and Kirk Cousins could fit the QB as co-coordinator bill as well.

4. Same Language, Same Teaching Tree --- all coaches and players need to be aligned to speak a common terminology. This kind of alignment builds confidence and trust. The kind of which that can enable the players to play super-fast and without hesitation. Notice what McVay says about hesitation as a final message on the chart above. He blames player hesitation on the coaches who are running the system, starting with himself. In my experience, coaches who are apt to blame themselves first are the most successful coaches. 

5. Game planning to attack a team's weaknesses is something we have rarely seen enough of from the Cardinals --- on both sides of the ball. This requires astute advanced scouting of the opponents and a hefty number of film study sessions to be able to chart and track the other team's weaknesses and tendencies, in terms of personnel and schemes. The repping of those tendencies in practice during the week is paramount so that the plans a well engrained to the point where the players can diagnose plays before and while they happen, and yet still play fast and instinctive. 

It's actually true that Bill Belichick himself was teaching Malcolm Butler over and over how to fight over WR inside leverage in order to defend the quick slant before Super Bowl XLIX in Arizona. Miraculously, Seattle called the WR quick slant on 1st a goal from the one yard line and despite having  never quite made the play in practice, Malcolm Butler fought through the levelage and jumped the route like an All-Pro --- to make the interception when, of course, it mattered most. 

6. Emotional Energy is Coached. I saved this for last because I have always believed this. This speaks directly to Mike LaFleur's pledge for the coaches and players to work each day feeling an over-riding sense of urgency. Coaches need to model and beckon a sense of urgency from their players. Because playing with urgency is the only to win. Winning NFL football games requires every player to be on his toes and zeroed in on his assignments as if the outcome of the game depends on every play;  because, so often, it does. Body language matters. Eye contact matters. Sitting up straight matters. The energy and focus that each player gives to enhance the well-being of the team is of paramount importance, Winners do this for the team and each other.

What stands out about Mike LaFleur is his humble values as a person and his own urgency to be the best coach he can be for the sake of his players and fellow coaches. As intuited from his opening press conference, Mike LaFleur appears to have the kind of no-BS integrity that can change the modus operandi of the entire organization. Plus, look at the tenets of Sean McVay's philosophy and wow, what a superb combination of honesty and time-tested mantras.