When an ESPN report surfaced that the Cardinals and Packers were planning on having joint practices during the preseason, it surprised no one. That feels inevitable when the teams are coached by brothers who know they don't have to face each other in the regular season.
Cardinals coach Mike LaFleur confirmed on Monday morning that's the plan, although the NFL still needs to give it's OK. Part of it, of course, will be confirming the Cardinals will have a road preseason game in Green Bay. (The Cardinals, including the Hall of Fame game, will play three of four preseason games this year away from Arizona.)
"When that gets done, yeah we'll go up there," LaFleur said. "The whole point, I love our training camp setup. We are away from the heat (in State Farm Stadium). We are on the grass. But at some point we have to go back to Tempe and get going there. To do the joint after we get back and get out of that heat, I told some of the guys, if we could go to Canada, we would. They just don't have a team."
(Sidenote: With the Cardinals having an international foot in Western Canada now, don't rule it out in the future.)
"The next best thing is to go up to Wisconsin," LaFleur added, "since we can't go to Seattle for obvious reasons."
Regardless of the heat, however, LaFleur said he loves joint practices, with the ability to hit other players and go against a different scheme. He acknowledged there will be defensive similarities with the Packers in this case; Jonathan Gannon was hired as the Packers' new defensive coordinator, after all. In the end, it doesn't matter.
"They are going to do whatever Green Bay is going to do and fit it to their players," LaFleur said. "To me, we are going against different players, different corners, blocking different guys. Training camp is long. For the same team to be hitting each other that many weeks in a row, you've got to break it up. You just have to.
"Inevitably, we know what is going to happen after you keep hitting your own brother after awhile. We are going to hug each other after, but when you're going you're going. It should be competitive."
