After sparks fly, Rodgers and LaFleur get ‘cozy’ on bench

The Green Bay Packers' coach-quarterback partnership weathered their first bump in the road.

Late in the first half, after Aaron Rodgers threw a pass toward the bench on a failed third-and-16, coach Matt LaFleur walked toward Rodgers as his quarterback walked to the sideline.

For the first time in the quarterback-coach “partnership,” as LaFleur has called his relationship with Rodgers since the day he was introduced as the team’s coach on Jan. 9, there were some on-the-field sparks.

The resolution, not the tempers, might be the bigger story from Sunday’s 21-16 victory over the Minnesota Vikings. With the defense on the field, LaFleur sat beside Rodgers on the bench. They did so again in the third quarter.

Other than a few times under interim coach Joe Philbin last season, the location of the conversation was a new one to Rodgers.

And a welcome one.

Video: Davante Adams on the offense vs. Minnesota

“Yeah, it’s definitely helpful,” Rodgers said, “when he’s bouncing stuff off – ‘Do you like this? Do you like that? Do you want to start with this? You want to get to this?’ It doesn’t have to be, obviously I did that with Mike a bunch, I’d kind of go to over where he was at, but Matt likes to get cozy on the bench.”

Unlike almost exactly 50 weeks ago, when Rodgers fumed at the podium following a frustrating victory over Buffalo and grumbled about then-coach Mike McCarthy’s game plan, Rodgers was upbeat following a frustrating victory over the Vikings. Green Bay stormed out to a 21-0 lead by scoring touchdowns on each of its first three possessions, but the offense went into a funk for most of the rest of the game.

At the time of the Rodgers-LaFleur spat, the Packers led 21-10.

“Yeah, that’s just two competitive guys and I’m sure it’s not going to be the last one we have. But you know, just competitors, heat of the moment,” LaFleur said. He added, “I would much rather have that than anything else because you want guys that are extreme competitors and that’s what he is.”

Rodgers said LaFleur caught him off-guard by approaching him following the play to talk about the look presented by the Vikings’ defense.

“We’re a little animated at times,” Rodgers said. “I can’t say we were yelling how much we love each other, but we definitely weren’t MF’ing each other or anything. It was talking about the look there and getting on the same page.”

The Packers had 10 first downs in their first three possessions en route to their 21-0 start. Their final 11 possessions, however, also gained 10 first downs. The Packers had chances to run away from Minnesota but couldn’t do it.

Up 21-7 early in the second quarter, the offense was on the move again until Geronimo Allison fumbled. Up 21-7 late in the first half, Rodgers completed a third-and-1 pass to Allison that he thought picked up the first down. Instead, the play was marked fourth down and a handoff to Jamaal Williams was stopped in the backfield.

“I looked over at Carl Johnson, the line judge, and he had spotted first down,” Rodgers said. “It looked from my vantage point that it might have been a positive questionable spot for us and, under 2 minutes, that’s a booth review. So, I just wanted to get us on the ball quickly. I just assumed first down because, when he put the ball down, I was looking at the first-down marker and it was clearly past the line to gain. So, I don't know what happened when it came back inside, but obviously I thought it was first down there and it was definitely not first down. That was a bad play by me.”

On Green Bay’s first possession of the third quarter, Rodgers and center Corey Linsley botched a shotgun snap. On the first play of the fourth quarter, a third-and-6, Marquez Valdes-Scantling couldn’t pull down a jump-ball pass against safety Jayron Kearse. On a second down with about 5 minutes remaining, Rodgers’ deep pass to Aaron Jones was tipped away by linebacker Eric Kendricks.

But, with the defense rising to the occasion, those quick 21 points were enough to get the Packers a second win.

“We’ve had a couple good quarters out of eight,” Rodgers said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. The fun thing about it is, we have moved the ball at times very easily. I think we made improvements from Week 1 to Week 2, but the biggest thing is we’re 2-0. We owe a lot of that to our defense and Mike Pettine and his staff and those guys for being opportunistic and making plays when they had to. But I think there’s still a lot of great potential in this offense. We’ve got to continue to find ways to get the ball to 80 (Jimmy Graham), get him more involved. Get 83 (Valdes-Scantling) some shots, as well. But it was nice getting Tae (Davante Adams) going today, because when he’s going our offense is a lot better.”