Why Mike LaFleur is the right OC hire for the LA Rams in 2023

Reason III: Mike LaFleur is Matt LaFleur’s younger brother

The LA Rams head coach Sean McVay is about legacy. That means that he respects the family origins of NFL experience, having been raised in an NFL-centric family himself. Mike LaFleur is the younger brother of Matt LaFleur, who himself was once an LA Rams offensive coordinator under Sean McVay. After one season as the LA Rams offensive coordinator, he was hired on as the offensive coordinator with the Tennessee Titans for one season before hiring on as head coach of the Green Bay Packers.

The tales of the tumultuous interactions between Matt LaFleur and Sean McVay are legendary, but it was the heat of their discussions that forged the best offense in Sean McVay’s head coaching career.

Mike LaFleur is not some name that just appeared in the Rolodex queue. Sean McVay is quite familiar with the younger LaFleur’s body of coaching work, he knows the man, and the LA Rams did not hesitate to seek him out and interview him. That, by itself, should lead fans to the conclusion that he is the candidate that McVay has wanted all along.

It’s on like Donkey Kong

Undoubtedly, McVay hopes to recapture that same passionate discourse that helped to place both himself and his offense on the NFL map. His last offensive coordinator, Liam  Coen, was too close to McVay in developing his own offensive strategies and concepts to effectively balance out the passion and rigidness of McVay’s playbook and playcalling.

LaFleur, much like his older brother, has a separate and distinct mindset. It was that family lineage that helped to temper McVay’s raw ideas into one of the most effective offenses in the past six seasons. And it’s now that same LaFleur lineage that he hopes can reignite his strategy out of his comfort zone to be effective in the NFL once more.