All signs point to the Arizona Cardinals heading to Green Bay for a joint practice with the Packers this preseason.
There’s still a final sign-off from the NFL, but new Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur said things are in the works.
“I love joint practices, because you get to hit somebody else, you get to see somewhat of a different scheme, all that,” LaFleur said during the annual NFL owners meeting on Monday. “But we’re going against different players, different corners, different D, we’re blocking different guys. Training camp is long and so for the same team to be hitting each other for that many weeks in a row, you’ve got to break it up.
“Inevitably we all know what’s going to happen after you keep hitting your own brother for a while. We’re going to hug each other after it, but when you’re going, you’re going. And it should be competitive. We’re working through that still. I don’t know if I can stamp anything. I’m waiting for kind of the league in terms of all that kind of stuff, but when that gets done, we’ll go up there.”
Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur couldn't give the final stamp on Arizona's expected joint practice with Green Bay, but it sounds very much like when not if. pic.twitter.com/6jz6MUFCCK
— Tyler Drake (@Tdrake4sports) March 30, 2026
On top of getting a week of work in with his brother and Packers head coach Matt LaFleur, Mike LaFleur is also going to get a taste of former head coach Jonathan Gannon’s defense now that the ex-Cardinal is Green Bay’s defensive coordinator.
Gannon was a huge fan of joint practices, heading to Minnesota (2023), Indianapolis (2024) and Denver (2025) during his three-year run in Arizona.
And while it’s expected there will be some similarities between the Nick Rallis-led Arizona defense and Gannon’s new unit, LaFleur isn’t concerned about any potential crossover.
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“I know someone’s going to say, ‘Well, JG’s kind of probably a similar scheme.’ They’re going to do whatever Green Bay’s going to do now, and he’s going to fit it to their players,” LaFleur said.
Another benefit of getting out of Arizona during the preseason? The weather.
It’s going to be toasty in Tempe (it already is getting that way) in the not-so-distant future. Add on another week of preseason action thanks to the Hall of Fame Game, and escaping the heat is a key component in heading to the Midwest for joint practice.
“We’ll turn it up, but at the same time we got to make sure that we’re taking care of these guys,” LaFleur said. “At some point (after training camp indoors), we got to go back home. We got to go back to Tempe and kind of get going there. To be able to do that joint after we get back, that gets them out of that heat.
“Like I told some of the guys already, if we could go to Canada, we would, they just don’t have a team. So, the next best thing is just going up to Wisconsin, because we can’t go to Seattle for obvious reasons. It’ll be fun.”
from Arizona Sports https://ift.tt/oXuLQJ5
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