After parting ways with the Jets last month, Mike LaFleur found a soft landing as offensive coordinator of the Rams.
LaFleur now has the position his brother, Green Bay head coach Matt LaFleur, held back in 2017 — head coach Sean McVay’s first season with Los Angeles.
As the younger LaFleur gets going in his new job, he told reporters on the Rams beat on Tuesday that being the Jets OC for the last two seasons was a great learning experience.
“I won’t pass those two years up for anything,” LaFleur said, via Greg Beacham of the Associated Press. “Every building, every circumstance is a little bit different. We decided two years ago we were going to go young, and we did, and we committed to that. There was things I won’t share in terms of what I would do differently, but it was a great learning experience about building a roster with a lot of youth.
“I was proud of a lot of things we did, and unfortunately it slipped away from us on the back end, but fortunately, I’m in a great situation here. Took that job for a reason, to grow and learn after a good four years with the team up north [the 49ers] and learned a ton there, from Kyle [Shanahan] in that building, and have so much respect for them, but it felt like it was a step for me to go in a situation that I wanted to learn and grow and get in front of these guys through the good and the bad and again, I appreciate the relationships I have with a lot of those players, all of those players.”
Before he was the Jets OC, LaFleur was with Shanahan from 2014-2020. He was an offensive intern with Cleveland in 2014, an offensive assistant with Atlanta in 2015-2016, and San Francisco’s passing game coordinator from 2017-2020.
McVay has called the Rams offensive plays since 2017. LaFleur said on Tuesday that while specific coaching duties are still being determined while the staff is being finalized, play-calling isn’t “even really on my mind at all” — indicating that McVay is still planning to do it.