Arizona Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur waited for his team’s Sunday training camp session to be completed before he dove into a scheduled press conference with the media. There were quite a few issues and topics to be discussed.
The coach seems to be anxious to get this year’s schedule on the road, including playing in the annual Hall of Fame Game on this Thursday, August 6.
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Here is what LaFleur said at the presser:
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Q: Have
you encountered any scorpions since you arrived?
LaFleur: It’s so funny you ask that. Yeah, about two weeks ago, my wife was going down and tucked in the kids, and there was a nice-sized scorpion right outside the little man’s room. So, that was our first encounter. Needless to say, there were people at the house the next day spraying.
Q: What do you got on injuries right now in terms of guys that are healthy, limping off the field, that kind of stuff?
LaFleur: Walt’s (Nolen) good. More of sometimes you name the player when they’ve had a serious injury like they did. It’s a process both mentally and physically getting through that. So, he’s good. Which is obviously a good thing for most importantly him, but the Cardinals as well. And then we’re going to hold Joey (Blount) out today. He got a stinger. What you guys know about his past injuries and stuff from the neck up, we’re going to do some more testing and go from there.
Q: Was it anything that Walt felt?
LaFleur: Just a little discomfort. He was not comfortable in that knee. He had an issue with a year ago. So, we checked it all out. Everything looked good and he’ll be ready to roll today. We look at that defensive line.
Q: The depth that you guys kind of collected, how are you seeing it right now? How crucial are guys like Nolan and Darius (Robinson) to take that step?
LaFleur: Not just those two. Like you said, the entire depth. I’ve been on a very good football team that didn’t have a very good defensive line, but it wreaked havoc. We’ve talked about in here about the quarterback being the most important position in sports, and it’s about as hard as it gets. But I’ll tell you what, that D-line, they got to cause havoc up there, snap in and snap out.
The importance of having depth so those guys can, when they’re out there, they can go, and then you can send in that kind of next platoon. I won’t even call them the twos, just the next platoon to get after, whether it be in the run game, setting edges, attacking, making it difficult for the offensive line, or obviously, rushing the passer there on third down. So, haven’t totally had that conversation in front of the team yet in terms of what I think of the D-line and O-line, for that matter. But this D-line needs to go, and they need to go hard.
Q: Besides obviously getting more reps for your players, more teaching time for your coaches, what’s the big advantage of playing in this game a week before everybody?
LaFleur: Yeah, I think you just said it. I’ve been on record just how excited I was to get that one extra block, right? And having that extra game. But then, if we have to kind of maneuver a day, we built so many reps off of that first block. So, just the totality of what that’s going to provide for us. And then you think about the game. I’m going to hold off. I don’t know if anyone’s going to ask me. I’m going to hold off in terms of saying who’s going to play. And I’ll tell you why. Mainly, I want these guys only focused on now. Like it’s the preseason – those games matter in the moment.
But what really matters in the preseason is the practice that we’re preparing for. And that’s where I want these guys, and that’s where I know those guys are at. So, the guys that do play, it’s their first time out there where coaches aren’t right behind them or giving them a script. There is no script. We’ll be tight with our plan. I want to see is these guys – their play style come to life, and us go operate before the snap. That’s it. And then everything else is those guys going out and letting it loose.
Q: That said, what’s your plan for this week as you as you go through the week here?
LaFleur: Yep. So, the same block. We got our practice today coming off an off day, which typically is going to be just a tick less of reps from what you guys saw in these last two practices. Tomorrow will be fun. Really fun in terms of just the amount of reps, and there’ll be some really good work put in. Then we’ll go back to our jog-through day and then our travel day. Which will resemble the third practice of that four-day block. We will be practicing, and we’ll be getting after it that morning. We just have to modify in terms of the guys that are playing, the guys that aren’t playing, and obviously the travel time from the Phoenix airport to take off to Cleveland.
Q: Jeremiyah stood up here the other day and insisted he wanted and needed to play in this game. Do you take any players’ input on whether they want to play, or is it your plan and you just need to tell them whatever the plan is?
LaFleur: It’ll never just be my plan. It’s going to be a collective and communicative effort in terms of great communication amongst everybody to see who needs it and who doesn’t. For instance, name a player that’s been in a league for 10-plus years that’s played a lot of football. It’s probably going to be a little different than a rookie, right? I appreciate Jeremiah saying that.
I know these guys love football. They want to play. I learned really early in this league it’s the preseason. It doesn’t matter in terms of the win-loss, but these guys are still out there fighting for jobs, too. Trying to put their best product out there, and they’re putting their bodies on the line like it’s real football, and if the guys that are playing, if they don’t go out with that mindset, I mean, that’s how you get hurt. It’s how you don’t put a good product on the field. I kind of almost made the mistake in my mind as a coach when I first got into it about just probably not being as serious as I needed to be with the players, and I learned really quickly. So, we’ll have the guys that are playing. It’s an amped-up environment. It’s real.
Q: You talked about your plan leading up to the game on Thursday. What’s your plan after the game when you guys can get back to it with practice? Is anyone sticking around for the ceremony on Saturday? What does that look like?
LaFleur: I follow one block at a time. So, not honestly, I’m not even there yet in terms of what’s today? Sunday. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We play Thursday. I don’t even get home until four in the morning, whatever it is, three in the morning. We got to evaluate the film, and then we got to get ready for that next block. When Larry (Fitzgerald) gets inducted, and he gets his speech and his time there, that’s going to be a pretty special moment. But I am really not even there yet with that next block.
I just know that when that next block comes, we still have a four-day deal, which is great. That fourth day is going to coincide with us taking off from here and getting back to Tempe, and that’ll be uh two days before we play Vegas. That’s really all I know so far. With preseason being such a different idea for rookies, having not played preseason games in college. Do you talk to them at all as a group saying, “Hey, like this is how you should approach the scheme,” or is that anything differently than how you I don’t want to over-talk it. It’s just a game, and again, when you put your body on the line, and it’s real live bullets out there, you’ve got to mentally get yourself right.
That’s not a problem as long as we approach it that way. And so, we won’t over-talk about it. It’s just, hey, we got to go play good football. We got to operate the right way, and our play styles got to come to life. And then when the ball snaps, you got to go execute. And sometimes it’s going to be clean looks, and sometimes it’s going to be a look that you’ve never seen, particularly in the preseason because it’s not like we’re watching film on Carolina at all. We’re not going to watch a snap of them. So, we’re just going to have a tight plan that is all-inclusive for whatever they bring at us. Protected plays, if you will. And you just want to see these guys come off the rock and go.
Q: You’ve talked before about your respect for Will Johnson. I’m curious, opposite of him, the competition between Denzel and Max. Has there been anything that stood out to you about that?
LaFleur: Competition. I see these guys continue to just worry about themselves and attack one play at a time. Again, it’s like anything in life. The more quality players that you have in one position room, the better it’s going to be for not only the team, but for that player. Like guys thrive on competition.
When someone’s getting pushed, you never want to get comfortable. And you have the rare instance where you have a guy that doesn’t really care. Like Trey McBride, you could have two Trey McBrides, and he’s probably not worried about that other Trey McBride. He’s worried about himself and continuing to move the needle. It doesn’t hurt to have those bodies. You mentioned those guys. I think we have multiple guys in that corner room that are worthy of being NFL players and contributors.
Q: About two weeks into camp, what do you think this team does really well?
LaFleur: I think they come to work. I think they’re focused in the day-to-day. I think they are where their feet are. I’ve enjoyed the urgency. I’ve enjoyed the way they approach every day. With that being said, we’ve got a long way to go. I thought two days ago was our best practice. That really doesn’t matter unless we move the needle today. I thought we operated the best. I thought it was the cleanest that we looked.
And then on the flip side, like I told the staff today, it’s never as good as it seems. It’s never as bad as it seems. I left here, and I was naturally – man, it was pretty cool competitive practice, and you watch the tape, and there were tons of details that needed to be cleaned up. Tons. And that’ll always be the case because we’re going to hold ourselves to a high standard. I appreciate these guys’ approach, and I look forward to what they’re going to do today.
Q: Any progress with the PUP guys?
LaFleur: Yeah, I’d say progress, but no timeline right now. If you ask Tip (Reiman), Tip’s feeling good. Garrett’s (Williams) feeling good. Sweaty’s feeling good. But I don’t have a timeline for you, and truly I mean that.
Q: You had said during spring that you thought there was actually an outside chance that Garrett could be ready for week one. Do you still feel like there’s a chance of that?
LaFleur: Yeah, I do. I feel really good about that. So, he’s feeling better every single day, and I love the approach from that guy. He’s who you talk about clockwork. It’s 6:00 a.m. every morning. He’s walking in that building doing what Garrett does, and that’s just kind of that’s just how he’s wired.
Q: Is Sweat close? Because you said it was just a matter of kind of building him up. It’s been two weeks now since the start of camp. Is he getting close to being built up?
LaFleur: Continuing to build.
Q: When you’re watching Josh, when you’re watching a practice film, how do you balance plays where if you guys were full go, it’d be a sack, or it’d be a hit or be a tackle for loss, but the plays made, and then how do you balance that?
LaFleur: Have you ever heard D-line coaches out there during a practice, and all they yell and scream is a sack after every play? It’s like guys, if that were true, then we’d have 14 sacks per game for 17 games, and we’d lead the league. So, there is a weird balance to that, and until I actually see that in real life where it’s that many sacks, then I’ll believe it. But at the same time,
hey, for that play, yeah, I guess that was a sack. But they stay away from the quarterback and the quarterback’s got to go through this unless it’s just absolutely egregious where he can’t even maneuver or step up. Obviously, then those quarterbacks just naturally kind of shut it down at that point.
When we do get edged a little bit, and we’re firm in the pocket, well, we can step up. And the other thing is we’re not going to do some of the things that we feel like give us an advantage from an offensive perspective with a lot of our protections. The way our backs shave off the defensive ends and stuff like that when they clear their protection responsibilities, we’ll never do that to our players. You could break a rib quickly, and we’re not going to do that. We’re going to protect our guys, but in season, when it’s a different color jersey, they’re going to go after that and make sure we get some of those concepts off, if you will.
