GREEN BAY, Wisconsin – The Packers and Cardinals thought they had the script set for Wednesday's joint practice when Mike LaFleur had a thought and needed to call his brother, Matt.
"We adapted," Mike said. "We pushed this back an hour.
"I'm like, 'I'm where my feet are, I don't care about this (future) practice.' Then I saw the schedule. If we had gone an hour earlier, that would've been 8:30 (a.m.) for our guys (body clock) and I wanted to get them a little extra sleep."
"He's quick to criticize everything I put on the schedule," Matt said. "He's like, 'Why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? We never do this.' And I was like, 'All right, Mike, you've got all the answers.'
"Nah. It's been healthy, it's been good. There's been give and take on both sides."
The brothers LaFleur have coached against each other before. They have had a joint practice with each other before. But Wednesday at Ray Nitschke Field, the practice grass next to Lambeau Field, the two were up against each other as head coaches for the first time.
And with father Denny and mother Kristi watching, they completed a moment Denny called "surreal."
"But I feel this way," Denny said. "They earned it."
Matt is more than seven years older than Mike. They were virtually born to coach, with Denny a teacher and longtime assistant at Central Michigan and Kristi a teacher and coach of multiple high school sports. Since both were little kids, they were on the sidelines somewhere.
That they would both become head coaches – Matt in 2019 with the Packers, Mike this past January with the Cardinals – in the NFL seemed remote. But here they were.
"I knew what I was going to end up doing," Mike said. "If you would've told me I was going to end up as as the quarterback coach at Central Michigan, I'd probably say you're full of crap. You didn't envision any of this."
Both Matt and Mike acknowledged they talk or text often – "One less time per day I do with my wife," Mike said – and Matt said working with Mike in a joint practice situation does allow for a little more trust for a day in a notoriously secretive league.
For the day, however, it's only a practice. And Friday is only a preseason game. For that, all the LaFleurs were thankful, Denny mentioning it will be easier on Kristi this time around.
The two teams will play in the regular season next year at State Farm Stadium.
Mike has talked about how important his older brother was to inspiring his career, and that includes the moment when Matt accepted a job on the Browns staff from Kyle Shanahan without Mike knowing.
Sure, Matt joked earlier in the week that if there was a fight about to start between the teams in the joint work, the players should tag in the LaFleur brothers so they could battle at the 50.
"He's had the pec (injury), he's had the Achilles. We're going to keep him upright right now," Mike deadpanned.
The families are getting together. And the two coaching staffs were getting together for dinner Wednesday night – that isn't a LaFleur thing; the Packers do this with each staff they have joint work with.
Mostly, though, this is football season. That's what the work is about.
"Let's be real," Mike said. "My whole focus is making sure the Arizona Cardinals are successful on Sundays, but you are always rooting for your brother – as long as it doesn't affect the Arizona Cardinals."
