Mike LaFleur takes the Arizona Cardinals onto the field Thursday night for the first time as a head coach, and he will do it in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game against the Carolina Panthers. It is a preseason game that does not count in the standings, but for LaFleur it is the first live look at how his staff handles game night when the lights come on.
That is why the game is drawing attention now. It will be shown in primetime on NBC, it will honor the Hall of Fame class that includes Larry Fitzgerald, and it comes with roughly 35 Cardinals players not expected to play, including Jeremiyah Love. The sidelined group did heavier work at practice Wednesday morning before the team traveled, leaving LaFleur to open his first game with a roster built more for evaluation than for winning.
LaFleur has been clear that the moment matters even if the record does not. He said the preseason games matter in the moment, while the practice built around them matters most, because the real job is getting players ready to show their style and getting the team to operate cleanly before the snap. He added that he learned early in coaching that he was not serious enough with players at first, and that lesson changed how he approached these games.
There is a reason that sounds different from a coach dismissing August football. LaFleur said the players who suit up are fighting for jobs, trying to put their best product out there and putting their bodies on the line. “The guys that are playing, it's an amped up environment. It's real,” he said, a reminder that the game may be preseason, but the consequences for the people on the field are not imaginary. Rookie Carson Beck is expected to get a much-anticipated start, which gives the Cardinals one more layer to sort through while the head coach is sorting out his own first game-day routine.
That routine will include Nathaniel Hackett, the offensive coordinator LaFleur said he wanted and nobody else. Hackett, who has head-coaching experience, framed Thursday as a dry run for a staff that is still learning how it moves together on game day. He said the game should help with time management and the rest of the operation, and that the group should expect some ups and downs while it works through them. For LaFleur, that is the real test: not the final score, but whether the Cardinals look organized enough to carry that same structure toward Week 1 and the trip to Los Angeles for a game against the Chargers.
So Thursday is less about the Hall of Fame Game as an exhibition than as a live rehearsal for a new coach, a new staff and a roster that is already being divided into those who play and those who are protected. LaFleur gets his first answer in public, and the Cardinals get their first measure of whether the plan looks like a team before the season begins.
