The Arizona Cardinals are setting the tone early under their new head coach, Mike LaFleur. The Cards opened their offseason program this week, their first under LaFleur.
After going 3–14 with multiple losses stemming from two key moments, LaFleur is focusing on the small details in the early part of the program. Players said LaFleur set high expectations but also inspired the team to achieve them.
“Meeting Coach LaFleur, he’s awesome,” linebacker Zaven Collins said on April 7. “Meeting with him, and just getting to talk about all the things, how he likes Arizona. Stuff outside of football, but also football. Having our first team meeting today with him, and how he wants things, what he expects out of us, he’s very clear on all that. There was no confusion whatsoever. So it’s really nice, and you can tell how he wants his ship ran, and it’s a really good starting point to see how it’s all going to go.”
LaFleur is a disciple of the Shanahan coaching tree. He got his start as an intern under Kyle Shanahan, who was the Cleveland Browns’s offensive coordinator. He followed Shanahan to the Atlanta Falcons as an assistant, then to the San Francisco 49ers as the passing game coordinator and, briefly, the wide receivers coach.
He then took a job with the New York Jets as their OC under former 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh. He was fired after the 2022 season, but was hired by the Los Angeles Rams as their offensive coordinator and served until he was hired by the Cardinals.
Collins said that LaFleur energized the team in their first team meeting. He also set clear expectations for the team.
“Win football games,” said Collins. “[He was] very clear. That’s something we want to do this year for sure, for the Valley, for this organization, for all the guys that come into work every single day.”
The Cardinals have a lot of work to do to turn their fortunes around. They went just 3–14 and were marred by offensive inefficiency. They ranked 23rd in the NFL in points per game and 19th in yardage. But mental errors in key moments have plagued the team and led to several losses.
After tying the game in the final 30 seconds, a busted coverage cost them the game against the Seattle Seahawks in week 4. Emari Demercado’s goal-line fumble against the Tennessee Titans in Week 5 started a collapse that turned a 21–6 lead into a 22–21 loss. And in overtime against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 12, quarterback Jacoby Brissett threw a long bomb downfield into double coverage on 4th down, when he had two receivers open for an easy first down; the Jags lost 27–24.
With those in mind, LaFleur said he would stress the fundamentals early.
“I think the whole point is that everything is a big deal,” center Hjalte Froholdt said. “How about we just figure out how we get in the freaking huddle and we are all on the same page, because if the first group isn’t on the same page, well then the rest of the people can’t follow along. I think that’s a big deal.”
