Mike LaFleur Keeping It Real With Cardinals Players: 'I’m Not Smart Enough to Lie'

Arizona Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur believes, like any relationship, honesty is the best policy.

LaFleur's first opportunity to work with the new slate of Cardinals rookies arrived this week as rookie mini-camp is underway. Veterans previously were in the facility for workouts ahead of the draft while voluntary offseason team activities are set to begin next week.

LaFleur enters Year 1 of his tenure in the desert with no clear and defined expectations. The Cardinals were expected to compete for a playoff spot before finishing with a 3-14 record, which led to head coach Jonathan Gannon's dismissal.

This will be LaFleur's first time leading an organization as a head coach — and when asked how he believed the process of connecting with players was going, he offered quite the response:

"I think it's probably a better question for them. Again, I just try to be myself every day. So I'm not going to change. They know that I'm going to speak truth to them, because I don't know any other way. I'm not smart enough to lie. I truly mean that," LaFleur told reporters.

"I'm just trying to authentically be myself with these guys, teach them the system and answer the questions. Sometimes there's gonna be a little more energy than others, but I don't set expectations on myself so, but I answered too much on what I just said. I think it's a better question for the players."

That's something most NFL players will respect when it comes to leadership, especially with a first time coach where sometimes they can come off as inauthentic when trying to win over the locker room.

"You can kind of tell he's a no b.s. guy, he's going to tell you what he wants, how he thinks ... sometimes guys try to be too nice or this or they don't tell you the right things," Cardinals linebacker Zaven Collins said of LaFleur earlier this offseason.

"It gets very confusing for an athlete, especially young athletes. So I think that's something he does a very good job of."

Cardinals center Hjalte Froholdt also offered, "I think he's been around and seen a lot of really good coaches so it's natural for him to go up there and speak from the heart. There's some scripting of course, some things he needs to go over, but there's also something natural you can see comes off the bat, off the rip, it's authentic. That's good."

So far, so good for LaFleur — and that's no lie.

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