In a normal year, Green Bay Packers Head Coach Matt LaFleur would be getting his first glimpse of his second team watching organized team activities taking place on Ray Nitschke Field or inside the Don Hutson Center.
As we all know, this has been a far from normal spring.
LaFleur met the state media on a conference call Friday to talk about how this “virtual” off-season program is going and what he anticipates NFL football will be like come training camp time and the 2020 season.
A word of caution, some media members still quite can't grasp the concept of a conference call with as many as 50 participants. Phone lines have to be muted so any ambient noise isn't picked up and heard by everyone on the line. During the course of LaFleur's half hour session we heard either a radio or TV show where the Aaron Rodgers/Jordan Love debate raged on, there were incessant screeching noises, a commercial for Steinhafel's, text notifications and yes, even a dog barking on the soundbite you'll hear for yourself.
LaFleur forged on in spite of it all, even though it got so bad the call had to be cut off and reconnected.
The Packers are about two weeks into their virtual off-season work, most of it consists of web meetings, utilizing several social apps like Zoom to have an entire position group, offense or defense take part.
LaFleur was asked about how the sessions are going and then answered a question about easily the hottest off-season topic in Green Bay, the highly anticipated mentor/protoge' relationship between Aaron Rodgers and number one draft pick Jordan Love. (Again, apologize for the barking dog….not mine)
(Audio: Matt LaFleur)
LaFleur says he and the team is much farther along with installations in his second year and despite the lack of on-field work, he's confident both sides of the ball will be ready to hit the ground running when camp begins. He said he hasn't given much thought to the possibility of a delayed or shortened season and he doesn't even want to think about playing games without any fans. If that is the case, LaFleur said we'll all just have to adjust.
The wait to see his players might not last much longer as late Friday, the league announced plans to possibly open team facilities in early June.
