New locations for coaches
As LaFleur takes the sideline to call plays this Sunday in his first game since the NFC championship against the San Francisco 49ers, he’ll have offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett in his ear from the coaches’ box for a second season.
“I think that we’re much more on the same page as a whole staff,” LaFleur said. “We’ve all been together for over a year and a half now. Just the communication, our process ... we’ve got a much better feel for what our players are capable of doing, and how we can try to put them in position to get that done.”
Although the offensive coaching staff remained largely unchanged this offseason, the sideline personnel assisting LaFleur will look a little different Sunday.
Wide receivers coach Jason Vrable, formerly an offensive assistant, moves from the coaches’ box to the sideline. He swaps places with offensive quality control coach Kevin Koger, who will join Hackett, assistant offensive line coach Luke Butkus and offensive quality control coach Connor Lewis in the coaches’ box.
“I think it’s going to be great up there, just the operation, the three of us being up there again,” Hackett said. “It just runs so smooth and I think that’s the key to get the information to Matt as fast as we can from what we see down to him. We’ve just got to continually get better. It already got better last season and it’s just going to continually get better.”
Vikings outline pregame plans
On Sunday, the Vikings will welcome in some guests to an otherwise empty U.S. Bank Stadium by inviting the family of George Floyd to be recognized during the playing of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” following team warmups.
Floyd was killed May 25 by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, sparking a wave of social-justice messaging from NFL teams — including the Packers.
As of this week, the Packers have yet to publicly declare what demonstration they will perform before the game Sunday.
“We talked about that as a team, and we’re keeping that in house,” defensive captain Za’Darius Smith said.
In the NFL season opener Thursday night in Kansas City, the Chiefs played “Lift Every Voice and Sing” along with the national anthem. The Houston Texans elected to remain in the locker room for both. Both teams then joined together at midfield and linked arms for what they called a “moment of unity.”
“I think it was just great to see both teams do that united and both of them come to an agreement to do something as teams,” Packers defensive tackle Kenny Clark said. “Just with us, we’re still talking about everything, about what we wanna do and all that kinda stuff, so I don’t really have nothing to say about that, but we’re still talking about that.”
Some boos could be heard from the socially distant crowd of about 17,000.
“It really caught me off guard, just people coming together for one common goal, and during like a protest moment of silence people were booing,” Jones said. “I think that shows they don’t have a lot of respect and they really don’t care about the name on the back of your jersey or you as a person, it feels like when they’re booing during those times. We know it’s not everybody out there that’s like that, so you can’t group a group of people into that.”