Mike LaFleur Leans Into Authenticity To Energize Cardinals

Arizona Cardinals Head Coach Mike LaFleur during Phase Two of the offseason workout program at the Dignity Health Training Center on Thursday, May 14, 2026 in Tempe, AZ.

As the Cardinals began their on-field work earlier this spring, Kendrick Bourne watched his head coach closely.

It wasn't as if the veteran wide receiver didn't know Mike LaFleur. Bourne's first four seasons in the NFL were spent with LaFleur as his position coach and then the passing game coordinator with the 49ers. Yet here Bourne was on the practice field finding himself impressed once again.

"He was calling plays off the head, no script," Bourne said. "He's just calling plays, making us get to spots off his head, and it's like, 'Yoooo.'

"It's dope to see it come from his mind and then the guys, and I'm proud of us, we're catching on. If he isn't presenting it well in the classroom and going off his mind outside, the pieces don't come together. He's enthusiastic and passionate in the classroom, and the way he's teaching it we're receiving it that way. It's not dull. As players we feel that."

Words like energy and enthusiasm are routinely brought up when the 39-year-old LaFleur is the topic. The first-year Cardinals head coach, who has been in the NFL since 2014 when he began as a Cleveland Browns intern, isn't sure those are the right descriptions.

"I don't see it as energy. I think it's authenticity," LaFleur said. "I'm not smart enough to lie and be fake. A lot of the positive feedback I have gotten throughout my career is 'you keep it real.'"

His household was dominated by coaching role models. Dad Denny was an assistant coach for Central Michigan for years. Mom Kristi coached cheerleading and track. Older brother Matt – 7½ years Mike's senior – went into coaching after his small college playing career and has been head coach of the Green Bay Packers since 2019.

Inevitably, Mike LaFleur, who at 5-foot-9 also played small college football (Elmhurst University), went into the family business.

"I always knew I would probably coach," LaFleur said. "I'd say I had the dream of actually playing first, but I wasn't too dumb to figure it probably wasn't to be."

Whether he saw himself being hired as an NFL head coach before his 39^th birthday is a different conversation. But here he is, now directing the Cardinals in 11-on-11 work in OTAs as a boss for the first time, looking to rejuvenate a squad that went from big expectations to three wins a season ago.

LaFleur believes. That's authentic. And his players sense that vibe.

"Trey (McBride), at the end of the breakdown (recently), was like, 'Man, I'm excited for this year, you can feel it.'" Bourne said. "That's the momentum you want."

Jeremy Chen/Arizona Cardinals

When Denny LaFleur was let go by Central Michigan after some two decades as an assistant on the football staff, "it was one of the worst days of my life," Mike LaFleur said.

Mike was in fifth grade.

"I vividly remember not just the day but the days leading up to it, giving me the heads up this might not be going well," he said. "(CMU football) is all we knew."

Matt was a senior in high school by then, the age gap between he and Mike at its most pronounced.

"He was a little more like a pest growing up," Matt said with a smile. "I mean, when I was 18 he was 11. He would antagonize me and inevitably there were times I'd be bothered by him. I'd always end up getting my butt ripped by my parents because they expected the older brother to be the more mature one. That wasn't always the case."

Denny was the football coach but it was Kristi that Mike said ingrained just as much coaching expertise into her sons. The work and belief she instilled in her teams came with a message that never wavered.

When she tried to let Matt and Mike in on her secrets, the two didn't necessarily want Mom's wisdom.

"But we heard her," Mike admitted.

This has trickled into Mike's philosophies. It is important for him to stay consistent. It's also important for him to connect, which he has felt from his family forever.

Mike (left) and Matt LaFleur after Mike's introductory press conference as Cardinals head coach.

As a graduate assistant at Saginaw Valley State about an hour from home, Matt made it to as many of Mike's JV games that he could. That was the age when Mike really bought into the work ethic needed for football. By then, Mike said, he could feel Matt becoming more than a brother. He was his best friend.

One of the reasons Matt took a GA job at Central Michigan – where he roomed with fellow assistant Robert Saleh, Mike's eventual boss with the Jets – was to be close to home and attend Mike's varsity games.

"That was really important to me," Mike said.

It was important to Matt as well. Their relationship was everything.

"We are as close as anybody," Matt said. "There are no other siblings. I was so fired up coming to Phoenix for his first press conference. I was nervous for what he could do and then it was, 'Holy sh*t, that's a lot better than I could do.'"

Matt's first NFL job was in 2008, as a Texans' offensive assistant helping Kyle Shanahan. At that point, Mike was playing his senior year of college at Elmhurst, where he would join the football staff the following year.

When Matt got to Washington in 2011, Mike was able to visit and watch some offseason work. At one point, Matt and fellow assistant Sean McVay started quizzing Mike, who was then a coordinator at St. Joseph's in Indiana, on his offense.

"There were a couple of questions he couldn't answer," Matt said. "It was such a great lesson for him. Probably a humbling moment. But taking that one experience, I think there is a reason where he is."

The dreams hadn't been that grand early on. Matt once told Mike if he could just be the quarterbacks coach at Central Michigan, it would be a great job. Mount Pleasant was more of a college town, if not MAC then Michigan or Michigan State.

But then Matt went to the Houston Texans. And then Washington.

"Once he got there, and I got to see it from afar," Mike said, "you start to think, 'that looks pretty cool.'"

Jeff Chiu/AP

Mike LaFleur was the offensive coordinator for Davidson in 2013, and he had just gotten off the recruiting trail. He and his wife, Lauren, were planning on driving from Charlotte to Ashville for a night to take in a Zac Brown concert.

What he didn't know was Matt, who had taken a job on the Notre Dame staff, was on the phone that Sunday night with Kyle Shanahan, who had just taken the offensive coordinator job with the Cleveland Browns and who worked with Matt in Washington. Shanahan told Matt, "I need your brother to come work for me in Cleveland."

Matt didn't hesitate. "OK great. He'll be there tomorrow" and then called Mike.

"He said 'Kyle took the Cleveland job and you're going with him,'" Mike said. "I thought I heard him say he was going with him, and I'm like, 'But you're going to Notre Dame?' And he says, 'No, you're going.' I said, 'Seriously?'"

"I said, 'Hey buddy, pack your bags you're going to Cleveland. And oh by the way you're going to take a paycut, you're gonna make 25 grand,'" Matt said. "It was one of those opportunities, we have so much respect for Kyle, I knew what Mike was about to learn from one of the best in the business."

Mike packed what he could, and by noon on Monday, he was on the road to Cleveland.

The paycut wasn't great news. Mike called it a "substantial" decrease from what he was making. But Lauren quickly landed a pharmaceutical job that made up for the shortfall.

"You couldn't have written it any better," Mike said.

The path to Arizona has been mostly successful. He followed Shanahan to Atlanta when Shanahan became the Falcons offensive coordinator, reaching the Super Bowl in 2016. When Shanahan went to the 49ers in 2017 as head coach, he named Mike his wide receivers coach and later passing game coordinator.

Mike LaFleur (left) and Rams coach Sean McVay have a laugh during the March NFL owners meetings.

That got him the Jets offensive coordinator job in 2021 under Saleh, and when that ended with LaFleur being let go after the 2022 season, McVay hired him with the Rams as offensive coordinator.

His connections with both Shanahan and McVay, now rival head coaches in the NFC West, remain a large part of Mike LaFleur's story. But he feels no pressure in that regard. He's a coach. He grew up with coaches.

"We know what we signed up for," Mike said. "You're staying if you win, you're not staying if you lose. Put that to the side and let's find the way where we can get to play good enough football to win games."

Mike said being fired from the Jets helped him understand that "the train keeps moving no matter what." There is always noise, he said. Some of it might even be "good" noise. Blocking it all out is the goal.

The Washington staff Matt worked on in 2013 under head coach Mike Shanahan included Kyle Shanahan, McVay, Mike McDaniel, and Raheem Morris. They went 3-13. The coaches were fired.

"There will be tough moments, especially in our business, and you just gotta keep going," Matt said. "You have to keep going until they tell you to stop going."

That goes for any coach. But for the brothers now each leading an NFL team? Matt getting the Packers job in 2019 was a huge accomplishment in the family (Matt tried at one point to get Mike on his staff; Shanahan and the 49ers blocked the move at the time.)

But when Denny and Kristi and Matt showed up in Arizona in January after Mike was named the new Cardinals head coach, the smiles were wide. Matt didn't hesitate when he was asked if someone had told him so many years ago they both would be NFL head coaches.

"I'd say you're full of sh*t," Matt said with a grin. "It is pretty surreal."

Jeremy Chen/Arizona Cardinals

When Bourne signed with the Cardinals, he made it clear he believed in Mike LaFleur, the man who had been his wide receivers coach when Bourne came into the league with the 49ers in 2017. That was underscored when he said he wasn't worried about the unsettled quarterback situation – Bourne said LeFleur would figure it out.

LaFleur understood the sentiment. In Bourne's rookie season, the 49ers didn't know what they were going to do at quarterback before trading for Jimmy Garoppolo at the end of October.

"He's been a part of teams that didn't know what they were going to do and then all of sudden … this league is weird," LaFleur said. "We didn't have anyone his rookie year, and then we did."

Bourne's belief in LaFleur goes much deeper than what he can provide quarterback. He is a great teacher, Bourne said, and a builder of relationships.

"He helped me develop," Bourne said. "I trust in him, he trusts in me. With how I was when I was younger, I believe he can get through to anyone."

Bourne chuckled as he said it. He wanted to sign with the Jets when he was a free agent and LaFleur had taken the job in New York, but it didn't work out. His history with LaFleur has been built over years. But Bourne isn't the only one on whom LaFleur has made an imprint.

49ers wide receivers coach Mike LaFleur gives instructions to (from left) Victor Bolden, Dante Pettis, Kendrick Bourne and Marquise Goodwin in 2018.

Cardinals running back Bam Knight earned playing time with the Jets in 2022 while LaFleur was offensive coordinator.

"Even though we weren't in the best situation with the Jets, he made every week enjoyable, he made you look forward to practice," Knight said. "When I got my opportunities later, he embraced me. 'Bam, I'm ready to watch you work this week.' Him showing that excitement when I finally got that opportunity … you love to have that around you."

LaFleur smiles at the anecdote. "I don't know what I used to say to him, although I'm glad he appreciated it."

Linebacker Mack Wilson Sr. loves how LaFleur uses FaceTime, to make sure there is a personal connection even during a phone call. Wide receiver Michael Wilson said LaFleur makes him excited to come to work every day.

"I could on for two or three minutes raving about him," Wilson said. "He's one of the few NFL coaches I've been around, every time we have a conversation, he always asks about my daughter, my wife, how I'm doing as a person, not just a football player. He makes you feel like you're special as a human and not just an X and an O."

Coaching goes beyond the personal, of course. But LaFleur has cache in that realm too.

"Mike allowed me to be a better head coach because of the trust and autonomy that I gave him," McVay said at the March owners meetings. "He's gonna be a great playcaller, he knows how to sequence a game, he knows how to set it up.

"I'm going to miss him a lot."

Said Shanahan, "Mike's a good dude who really knows football. I really wish that these good coaches would get the hell out of our division."

Mike LaFleur, his wife Lauren, and children Addison and Wes take part in Pat's Run in April.

What the Mike LaFleur Cardinals might look like are in the early stages. Bourne promised LaFleur will "get spicy with the offense in a dope way" but until the team reaches training camp in late July, a true sense of what it will mean will be hard to gauge.

The Cardinals do have an extra preseason game (and the earlier start date that comes with it) because of the Hall of Fame game, which will allow LaFleur more time to prepare for the season.

There will also be joint practices in Green Bay with Matt's Packers, a chance not only to get out of the August heat in the Valley but prime his team during the day against another roster and also spend time with family as he ramps up for his first season as head coach.

Bourne's motivation this season is LaFleur-based, "like a return on investment," Bourne said.

"He helped me at the beginning," Bourne added, "and I want to help him now at the beginning of his head coaching career."

LaFleur's vibe has given him a good start. He's from a family of coaches. He's been in the NFL long enough that he knows reality. But he also believes in what he brings. That's authenticity.

"You learn at an early age that (coaching change) is somewhat inevitable," LaFleur said. "There are so many circumstances. You try to apply those lessons learned into what that next adventure will be.

"I say this: Any job I take, and particularly this one, I bought my house with the intention of keeping it forever."