With the way Sean McVay's coaching tree has grown over the years, the Los Angeles Rams are no strangers to facing former assistants after they become head coaches. Zac Taylor, Kevin O'Connell, Brandon Staley. The list goes on.
Next up is Mike LaFleur, who got his first head-coaching opportunity this offseason when the Arizona Cardinals hired him. He spent the last three years as McVay's offensive coordinator and will now face his former mentor for the first time on Sunday.
McVay was asked whether he's more cognizant of hand signals and snap counts against someone who knows the team well like LaFleur does, but he's not putting too much stock in it. He doesn't want to "chase a ghost" by paying it a lot of attention.
“Everybody around the league is
somewhere that have been in this building before now," he said. "We try to be mindful of it. You're aware of a couple of things, but I think you want to be careful to chase a ghost because it still is a player's game. You're still making decisions in real time. If you were a slowed down operation at the line of scrimmage, it'd be a little bit different but a lot of the things that are happening – you're making a call or they're making a call and we still have to make a call on offense or defense as well. You're aware of it, but you don't want to chase a ghost, I guess, is the best way I could put it for you.”
Matthew Stafford worked closely with LaFleur over the last three years, so the two know each other well. Stafford is fully aware of the inside knowledge LaFleur has of the Rams, but like McVay, he's not terribly concerned about it.
He's more excited to face a coach he has "a ton of respect for."
"Sean has done a heck of a job of curating coaching candidates around here for a long time," Stafford said of McVay. "Those guys have gone on and been successful. We've had opportunities to play a bunch of them. Mike is no different. I think he's a fantastic coach. I have a great relationship with him. I know that he knows a lot of what we do. We still have to go out there and execute it. We have to go out there and play. They have to go out there and execute their game plan as well. Obviously, with only one year removed, there are things you sit there and you could stay up all night and go, ‘Oh, does he think this or think that?’ You just go play the game. Trust the guys to go play the game because you put yourself into position to go make plays. Then you have to go make them. A ton of respect for Mike, what he's meant in my career and being a part of the staff here when I was playing. I have a ton of trust that he'll get that thing going over there pretty darn quick. Fired up to go play against him and see him.”
The Cardinals started the year with a shocking win over the Chargers in Week 1 but have lost four straight since then, sitting one game behind the Rams in the NFC West.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: Rams not overly worried about Mike LaFleur's inside knowledge
