Wednesday LaFleur: Joint Practice at Bengals

The Green Bay Packers will face the Cincinnati Bengals during a joint practice in Cincinnati on Wednesday. Here’s what coach Matt LaFleur had to say beforehand.

Author:
Bill Huber
Updated:
Aug 9, 2023 2:43 PM EDT
Original:
Aug 9, 2023

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Green Bay Packers

CINCINNATI – The Green Bay Packers will face just about the best measuring stick possible for their joint practice against the Cincinnati Bengals on Wednesday.

After reaching the Super Bowl in 2021, the Bengals won 12 games in 2022. While star quarterback Joe Burrow is out with an injury, they’ve got an elite running back, big-time receivers and a defense that finished sixth in points allowed last year.

“It’s a piece of the puzzle,” coach Matt LaFleur said before practice, “so it gives you a better indication of where you are in the moment, knowing that there’s a long time between now and Week 1 that you’re going to hopefully continue to get better and better.”

Former quarterback Aaron Rodgers wasn’t a big fan of joint practices – though he did warm to them – but his best friend, left tackle David Bakhtiari, sees an obvious benefit with a first-year starting quarterback a bunch of young targets at receiver and tight end.

“I like getting our young guys playing against other players and getting used to that, especially with the lack of preseason games,” Bakhtiari said. “I think that’s a huge a takeaway.”

Even if Jordan Love plays in Friday’s preseason game, those matchups tend to feature vanilla schemes. Defensively, the Bengals won’t want to put their schematic tweaks on film. Offensively, the Packers with a new quarterback will want to keep any stylistic changes under wraps, as well.

Wednesday’s practice will be a lot more like a game for Love and everyone else, especially with a veteran team like the Bengals unlikely to play their starters in the game.

“All that stuff is going to be key for us,” Love said recently. “You can go against your same defense every day, and you get to a game, you’re seeing new faces, seeing new looks you haven’t got reps against. The more reps we can get, different looks, it’s going to be helpful.”

Packers coach Matt LaFleur (Photo by Bill Huber)

On the other side of the ball, Cincinnati’s elite receiver trio of Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd will pose a major test for Green Bay’s high-quality secondary.

“This is one of the premier, if not the best, receiver corps in the National Football League,” LaFleur said. “They’ve got three dudes that can start on any roster. I wish Joe Burrow was going to be out there throwing them the ball to get a really good indication of where we are but I think the strength of our team is we’ve got a lot of good weapons and resources in our back end. It’s going to be a great challenge for our guys, and I’m excited to see how they respond.”

While the receivers and running backs will battle the defensive backs and linebackers in a 7-on-7 drill – something the Packers haven’t done under LaFleur – the linemen will go at it in one-on-one drills.

“I’m excited that we get a chance to go against somebody else,” defensive tackle Kenny Clark said on Monday. “We beat against each other all camp, all year, so, we get a chance to go against somebody else and get a different look and work on our craft.”

A couple more notes from LaFleur:

"It's a great opportunity to go against one of the premier teams in the National Football League. If you look at their roster, it's a pretty deep roster with a lot of great players."

- While he could change his mind based on what happens at practice, he's learning toward playing at least most of the No. 1 offense on Friday.

- Left tackle David Bakhtiari and tight end Josiah Deguara will practice.

- There will be a couple unscripted players to provide a more game-like experience.

Will this practice help you zero in on best five OL:

Yeah, I think absolutely. I mean, this is a really, really good front, probably one of the better fronts in the league, and they’ve got a very distinct play style. I mean, they are going to go hard and they are going to, they’re going to go hard throughout the duration of the play, then the next play, then the next play, then the next play … You can see their play style on tape and just going against some of those guys over the years, whether it’s Hendrickson in New Orleans or Reader in Houston, that’s just how these guys play and I think it’s going to be really good for us.

On bonding on the road:

I think it’s vital, in order to become the best version of whatever your team is. Certainly you’ve got to get the execution right and that’s more important, but I think when you have a team that can go out there and execute and a team that bonds really well together, I think it gives you an opportunity to survive the adversity that is inevitable in this league. It’s daily, it’s weekly, every game there’s going to be moments of adversity so I think the more that you get that social cohesion between your team the better opportunities you have to survive the bad moments and prevail in the end.