"Get out." Those were the two words first-year Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur told safety Josh Jones after he started a scuffle with a hit on running back Tra Carson.
While many have speculated if LaFleur has the ability to rein in the seemingly-independent Aaron Rodgers, he has no problem kicking out players who disrupt his practice.
"I just told him to get out at that particular moment," LaFleur told reporters after practice. "That's not what we want to be about, we've got to take care of our teammates, we are a team, we need everybody, so that's just kind of how we operate."
Some coaches love the training camp scuffles and the energy that they produce. LaFleur, on the other hand, believes they are an unnecessary injury risk.
"I don't want to tackle, we are in a thud situation because it's one thing if a guy knows he's about to get tackled, it's another thing when a guy gets tackled and he's not necessarily expecting it," LaFleur said. "I think that leads to injuries, like I've told you guys before, we want to stay off the ground."
Reporters then asked LaFleur what he saw that led to the scuffle, but all he noticed were two of his players tussling after an unwarranted hit.
"You guys probably had a better vantage point than I did," he said. "I'm well behind the play and sometimes your vision gets a little cloudy with all all those bodies in there."
"We're going to have a zero tolerance policy on that."
While fights happen in every training camp and several coaches don't approve of them, this gave us one of our first looks at LaFleur really standing up and taking control of his new team.
