GREEN BAY — As the Arizona Cardinals introduced his kid brother as their new head coach, Matt LaFleur sat in the gallery, beaming. And, truth be told, tearing up a bit.
“I thought I was going to get more emotional than he was,” the Green Bay Packers head coach confessed after Mike’s press conference — “Which I thought he nailed, by the way,” big bro emphasized — at the Cardinals’ headquarters. “I’m just really excited for his opportunity. I think he’s earned it, and he’s done it the right way. He’s been himself throughout this whole journey.
“There are no shortcuts. You’ve got to put in the work. And I think he’s going to do a great job.”
Matt traveled from Titletown to the Valley of the Sun — along with his and Mike’s parents, Denny and Kristi, who live in Green Bay just a short touchdown drive away from their eldest son’s office at Lambeau Field — he found himself reflecting on his own NFL coaching journey, which began with him as the Houston Texans offensive quality control coach in 2008 and culminated in being named the Packers head coach in 2019.
He made it clear that Mike has a built-in resource and support system in his older brother, who is 7 1/2 years older and will be entering his eighth season as the Packers head man in 2026.
Among Matt’s first pieces of his advice for Mike? Passing along a tidbit his first NFL head coach, Gary Kubiak, told him when he got the Packers job.
“I think the number one thing — and I’ll never forget when I got hired Green Bay Packers — Gary Kubiak called me, and he said, ‘Hey, there’s going to be a lot that you need to do. Just prioritize, and it will get done,’” LaFleur recounted. “I know it’s kind of like drinking water out of a fire hose when you get into this position, because there’s so many conversations that need to take place.
“Obviously, there’s a priority and an urgency to fill out your staff and then developing those relationships with your players, with the other people in the building. Because the one thing I’ve learned about this league is, man, it takes everybody, and you cannot have enough good people around you.”
Mike takes over a Cardinals team that went 3-14 in 2025 under Jonathan Gannon, whom Matt just hired as the Packers’ new defensive coordinator.
The 38-year-old younger LaFleur spent the past three seasons as the Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator — the same job his older brother held in 2017 under head coach Sean McVay — after stints with the Cleveland Browns, Atlanta Falcons (where he worked with his brother for two seasons), San Francisco 49ers and New York Jets.
Before that, though, he started his coaching career at his alma mater, Division III Elmhurst in Illinois in 2009, then worked at St. Joseph’s (Indiana) and Davidson before Browns offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan helped him get his foot in the door in Cleveland as an intern. (Former Packers defensive coordinator and new Miami Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley was on that staff, too.)
“You just kind of are where your feet are,” Mike said of his journey to being an NFL head coach. “You get that first opportunity — Matt obviously cracked in with the Texans in 2008, and I got my opportunity in Cleveland in 2014. Shoot, it was awesome. But the NFL mystique wore off really quickly. We had a job to do.”
Asked what he would have said if someone had walked into their house in Mount Pleasant, Michigan when they were kids and Denny was an assistant coach at Central Michigan and told them they’d one day be NFL head coaches, Matt laughed and replied, “I’ve had said you’re full of [expletive].
“It is pretty surreal. Just, humble beginnings. My dad at Central Michigan. I walked on at Western Michigan and played at D2 ball. Mike played at Elmhurst College, D3 ball. And I think we have a really great appreciation for guys that are essentially playing for the love of the game. And I think that is kind of in our core and who we are.
“It’s been a great journey.”
The LaFleur Bros. become the third set of brothers in the modern NFL era to simultaneously be head coaches and are the second brother act heading into the 2026 season, joining the New York Giants’ John Harbaugh and the Los Angeles Chargers’ Jim Harbaugh. John and Jim faced off earlier in their careers when John was coaching the Baltimore Ravens and Jim coached the San Francisco 49ers.
Before the Harbaughs and the LaFleurs, brothers Jon (Oakland/Las Vegas) and Jay Gruden (Washington) were head coaches in 2018 and 2019.
Although their teams have faced each other eight times during their NFL careers — with each winning four of them — the NFL’s scheduling rotation won’t have the Packers and Cardinals facing each other until 2027 — unless they meet up in the playoffs next postseason.
“I can’t wait two years. Hopefully [it happens] next year,” Matt said. “There’ll be champagne popping. The people it’s going to be hardest on are our parents.”
Especially on their mom, who already is well known for being a nervous wreck during her sons’ games — so much so that Rams general manager Les Snead, who worked with both Matt and Mike in Los Angeles, sent Mike a text message about her after the news broke.
“During games, she really watches the games. She just paces and tries to hide because of the stress,” Matt said. “And [Snead] said, ‘It’s probably a good idea for your mom between September and January to move to Europe.’ So maybe we’ll try to find a place for them over there, just to get her out of the fray a little bit.”
Of course, that won’t be happening, and while Mike digs into his new job and Matt focuses on getting his Packers over the hump in their quest for their first Super Bowl berth since the 2010 team won Super Bowl XLV a decade and a half ago, the two brothers know that while they’re different people, they believe in a similar approach to coaching.
“The beauty of coaching is, you’ve got to find out what your guys do the best and then put them in the position to go out there and do that,” Matt said. “Certainly Sean [McVay] does it as good as anybody in the game, in my opinion, just being able to adapt.
“Mike talked [in his press conference] about being organic throughout the course of the season and how you evolve. And I think there’s so much truth to that. You can’t be rigid. I think the days of rigidness in coaching are long gone. It can’t be, ‘This is how it’s going to be, because this is the way we’ve always done it.’
“It’s, ‘You got to find out what your guys do well, and then you put them in position.’ And it kind of organically grows throughout the course of the season.”