Mike LaFleur knew something had to change.
The Arizona Cardinals‘ defense, through five weeks, was reeling. It ranked 29th in yards allowed and dead last in scoring. The eye test, somehow, may have been even worse.
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“The product that we were putting out there, we’re better than that,” LaFleur said.
So that week, ahead of a trip to face the Los Angeles Rams, LaFleur held what he described as “tough conversations” with players and coaches. That process culminated in a pair of meetings held by LaFleur and coordinator Nick Rallis with the defensive players, informing them that the Cardinals were going in a new direction.
That direction was not — as many outside the building had hoped — a change at coordinator. It was, instead, a change in philosophy. The Cardinals were going to take on a more aggressive schematic approach, playing their brand of football, rather than trying to react to what offenses were doing.
“Sometimes it’s about the opponent but sometimes it’s just about you,” Rallis said. “And you’ve gotta make people beat you doing what you do really well.”
The changes have been broad, multiple players said. But the most visible element lies in the Cardinals’ blitz rate. Through the first month of the season, they ranked 27th in that metric. Over the past three weeks, they rank 15th.
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Perhaps it’s no coincidence that they’ve gone from the league’s worst scoring defense, at 32.4 points per game, to near league average, at 25.3.
Ultimately, the Cardinals’ changes were enacted by Rallis, who designs the defensive gameplans. But they were instigated by LaFleur, who sensed that his defense was not maximizing its potential, while simultaneously maintaining his trust in Rallis.
That’s a fine line to walk, but it speaks to the touch LaFleur has displayed in his first year as a head coach.
Given his playcalling responsibilities, it will always be easy to judge LaFleur on the success of his offense. That same simplification befalls playcalling head coaches around the league. And for LaFleur, that aspect is still a work in progress, difficult to fully parse with the deficient talent on his current roster.
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A head coach’s job, though, is not that straightforward.
“There’s a lot on his plate,” general manager Monti Ossenfort said. “With calling the offense, handling the game, managing the game, managing the team on a weekly basis.”
And in most of those areas, LaFleur is off to an encouraging start.
Take the fourth quarter on Nov. 1, when L.J. Collier extended a drive with an unnecessary roughness penalty, nearly costing Arizona the game. It would have been natural for LaFleur to remove Collier, punishing him for shoving a Cowboys player to the ground after the whistle.
But LaFleur maintained his trust in the veteran, and Collier rewarded his head coach with two pass breakups and a sack on Dallas’ final three drives.
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“Some guys you have to talk to in the moment, some guys you just know,” LaFleur said after the game.
And how did LaFleur know?
“He chops it up with us,” Collier said. “He gets to know us.”
Much of LaFleur’s day-to-day is consumed by his responsibilities constructing an offensive game plan. Still, he takes time to chat with defensive players, whether during practice or by popping into defensive meetings.
To those players, that makes a difference.
“I’ve been on teams, whether in college or even in the league, where coaches are one-sided, and they don’t really come to the other side of the ball,” Collier said. “To see him come down there and chop it up with us is really awesome.”
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That foundation of trust enables LaFleur to make difficult decisions — say, leaving a player in the game after a crucial fourth-quarter mistake, or overhauling his team’s defensive identity midseason.
LaFleur’s ability to command the building has shown up with his own unit, too.
Early in the season, the Cardinals were hampered by pre-snap penalties, with seven in the first three games. It was a talking point in nearly every press conference and even more of a focus behind the scenes. During practices, the Cardinals ensured they were getting each play call in quickly, sprinting to the line of scrimmage and communicating as they would in a game setting.
And outside of the fourth quarter last week — with a new quarterback in the huddle — the Cardinals have not committed more than one pre-snap penalty in a game since.
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“It’s just something that we’ve emphasized as much as we possibly can,” offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett said. “Made it important to us.”
Then there was this week’s quarterback change. LaFleur has never had to make a change like that before, but he knew exactly when to pull the trigger, inserting Gardner Minshew to pull off a miraculous comeback win.
And when the Cardinals agreed to trade Jacoby Brissett to the Baltimore Ravens, LaFleur ensured that his players knew before anyone else. He did the same when Marvin Harrison Jr. was traded, interrupting a special teams meeting to inform his players before the news hit their social media feeds.
“He just keeps us in the loop,” wide receiver Michael Wilson said. “And you appreciate that as a player.”
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That’s not to say LaFleur has been perfect as a head coach. His in-game decision-making has been among the most conservative in the league, making the analytically correct decision on just 75.5% of fourth downs, based on ESPN’s modeling. And he would tell you that his playcalling has sometimes put players in difficult positions, even if that undersells his successes in that department.
His win-loss record is also, of course, just 3-5. By the end of the season, it may look even uglier, with a roster battered by injuries. This week, the Cardinals could be down to a backup quarterback, a backup running back, two backup wide receivers, a third-string left tackle and a fourth-string right guard. That’s rarely a recipe to pile up the wins.
But those are the elements most evident on TV every Sunday. Focusing on them ignores that LaFleur is also a CEO, responsible for overseeing a group of players, coaches and support staffers that numbers in the hundreds.
In those areas, he’s showing signs that Arizona may have — finally — found its answer.
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“I just couldn’t be more pleased that he’s the coach,” Ossenfort said. “He’s the right guy for this job and he’s gonna be the right one to lead us through this.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why Mike LaFleur’s off to encouraging start as Arizona Cardinals coach
