Jets-Packers a family affair for LaFleur brothers

Every Monday, Jets offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur speaks to his brother, Packers head coach Matt LaFleur, about their Sunday games. Matt usually critiques his little brother and tells him things he could have done differently or better.

Mike enjoys those talks. He appreciates the constructive criticism.

This week, Matt, 42, and Mike, 35, didn’t have that talk. The LaFleurs are not sharing their thoughts or helping each other, not with the Jets playing the Packers on Sunday in Green Bay.

“That’s what kind of stunk about Monday is we didn’t do that,” Mike LaFleur said. “I would have liked to have known what I could have done much better, in his opinion, from Sunday. I probably would have countered with something. We didn’t get to do that. But we’ll definitely be able to get to do that Monday and every week after that.”

This is a special and somewhat difficult week and game for the LaFleur family and, to a lesser extent, Jets head coach Robert Saleh. Saleh and Matt LaFleur are best friends and former roommates and were members of each other’s wedding parties.

Saleh said Matt is “like a brother.” They speak almost every day.

Not this week.

No one is suggesting that football is bigger than family or close friendships, but on Sunday, inside Lambeau Field, relationships will be put on hold. Winning is all that matters for these two 3-2 teams.

“I really don’t think about it for two seconds,” Matt LaFleur said. “I really don’t. It’s about trying to prepare our team. Everybody is just the next opponent.”

Mike LaFleur said, “I’m just focused on going against his defense and putting our guys in a good position. I truly mean that.”

Their players don’t believe them. They think bragging rights are at stake.

“He’s going against his brother and his best friend — this game for sure means more to him,” Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said of his coach. “Matt operates at an anxiety base level of around 7. Honestly, you can’t really tell the difference between a week going against Rob and Mike and a week going against guys he doesn’t know as well.”

Jets receiver Corey Davis thinks it means “a little bit more” to Mike than other games.

“Going up against your brother, you want to prove a little something to the family,” Davis said. “Going home for Thanksgiving, whatever it is, you want something to talk about. I think this is going to be a big one for him.”

This isn’t the first time LaFleur teams have squared off. It’s the sixth, covering numerous staffs.

Matt’s teams have won three times. Mike’s won most recently: the 2019 NFC Championship Game, when San Francisco beat LaFleur’s Packers. Mike was the 49ers’ passing game coordinator and Saleh the defensive coordinator.

This is the first time they’re meeting with Mike as a coordinator in which it’s his offense against his brother’s team, though. Still no different, Mike?

“No, honestly,” he said. “Maybe it is. Maybe my family feels different. For me, I’ll see him Sunday, which is cool because during the season we don’t see each other. That’s the difference. We get to say hi, dap it up real quick on Sunday and that’s that.”

Saleh, who played a big part in Matt LaFleur getting his first NFL job, said that facing old friends and former colleagues happens so frequently that he’s “numb to it.”

The LaFleurs and Saleh are from the Kyle Shanahan tree, which also includes Rams coach Sean McVay.

Saleh and Matt forged a friendship when they were grad assistants at Central Michigan under Brian Kelly in 2004. They shared a tiny office and roomed together. They couldn’t afford cable on their small salaries, so they would go to the LaFleur family home in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, which was about a mile away, to raid the fridge, watch cable TV and swim in their pool. Mike was in high school at the time.

“That bothered me,” Mike said. “They were going to take the TV over. They were just going to be around, especially in the summer, when they would be getting their little suntan in before they went into the adult area of Mount Pleasant, Michigan, wherever that may be. I was in high school. It’s wild that I’ve known Saleh that long.”

The three never could have imagined that less than 20 years later, they would be in their current positions. Matt LaFleur said he and McVay joke that going against one another is “champagne problems.”

Saleh got to the NFL first; he was hired by the Houston Texans in 2005 as a defensive intern. A few years later, Houston had an opening on offense. Saleh suggested Matt to Shanahan, then the Texans’ offensive coordinator.

Matt was the offensive coordinator at NCAA Division II Ashland at the time. He interviewed with head coach Gary Kubiak and Shanahan and got the job as offensive quality control coach in 2008.

“It was one of those 20-20-20 jobs,” Saleh said. “You’re in your 20s, work 20 hours a day and get paid $20,000 a year. He was ready to roll and everything since then has been all him.”

Since then, Matt followed Shanahan to Washington and Atlanta, serving as quarterbacks coach before joining McVay in Los Angeles as the Rams’ offensive coordinator in 2017. After a year as the Titans offensive coordinator in 2018, Matt became the Packers’ head coach in 2019.

Shanahan gave Mike his first NFL job. He was an offensive intern in Cleveland in 2014 before following Shanahan to Atlanta and San Francisco, where he was the head coach.

Matt and Mike worked together in Atlanta for two years. There was an opportunity for Mike to join Matt when Green Bay hired him. Mike chose to stay with San Francisco and Shanahan.

“I somewhat had an opportunity,” Mike said. “There was a discussion between us, but at the same time I had an awesome, awesome job in San Francisco. I was in the receivers room the first two years in San Francisco. [Shanahan] was moving me into the quarterback room to work directly more with him. It was the greatest two years I could have as a coach to be right next to him every single day going through the plan.”

When the Jets hired Saleh, he gave Mike his first coordinator job. He knew Mike had learned from a great offensive mind and that he would work tirelessly and put his stamp on the system.

“He’s every bit deserving,” Saleh said. “I know you can call it, ‘Oh, you just hired a buddy.’ He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t good at his job. He’s a very smart young man, he’s a very capable young man, he knows how to put the players in the best position possible for them to take advantage of all of their athleticism. He’s growing every single day, too.

“He is finding his niche and finding what he likes and what he wants to get done, and I think with each passing week, he’s only going to get better and better. You have to be a really smart, ego-free man to be able to continue to evolve and build, and I think he is every bit capable of that.”

Now all three will be at Lambeau Field along with LaFleur’s parents, Denny and Kristi, and their sons’ wives. Mike said his mom doesn’t like these games.

In 2017, when Matt’s Rams and Mike’s 49ers met, their parents had shirts made up that read, “San Angeles Rammers.” Maybe Sunday they’ll wear something that says “New Bay JetPack’’ or “Green York Packets.’’

When Matt was asked what his parents will be wearing for this game, he replied, “Considering they just moved here, they better be wearing Green Bay Packers.”

By Al Iannazzone

al.iannazzone@newsday.comAl_Iannazzone

Al Iannazzone covers the Jets for Newsday after spending nearly two decades on the NBA beat with Knicks and Nets.