No time for family affairs for LaFleurs

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The time for platitudes is over. This is championship week, a serious time, with a potential trip to the Super Bowl taking center stage.

So Packers coach Matt LaFleur had to interrupt a question Wednesday with reporters. He was asked about his little brother, 49ers pass-game coordinator Mike LaFleur. The premise was that Mike LaFleur was a great coach, presenting a challenge.

For Matt LaFleur, the premise was a line too far. “First of all,” LaFleur interjected, “who said he’s a great coach? I never said that.”

He couldn’t hide his smile. Of course he thinks his kid brother is a great coach. He wouldn’t have tried to “steal” him away, as 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan put it this season, if he thought otherwise.

But the quip was one example of how awkward this week might be in the LaFleur family. Matt LaFleur’s parents, Denny and Kristi LaFleur, are no strangers to watching their sons compete. They’ve never seen it like this, a trip to the Super Bowl awarded to one child, heartbreak to the other.

“Well,” Matt LaFleur said, “I know they’re going to the Super Bowl. One way or the other.”

When the Packers traveled to the 49ers in late November, LaFleur’s wife, BreAnne, and sons, Ty and Luke, traveled to the West Coast a couple of days early. They stayed with Mike LaFleur’s family. There were jokes of sabotage, of spying, and the stakes were relatively high. The idea of home-field advantage being on the line was lost on no one.

But this week is entirely different, a Super Bowl trip hanging in the balance. “Yeah, I think there’s a little different vibe,” Matt LaFleur said. “I’ll just leave it at that. I haven’t really talked to him much at all. It’ll probably be that way for the remainder of the week.”

The LaFleurs are not the first family to compete in a high-pressured NFL game. Still, it will be new to them. The LaFleurs attended Super Bowl LI, but the brothers were both part of the coaching staff of the Falcons, who lost to the Patriots.

“It’s mixed emotions,” Matt LaFleur said. “It is what it is. It certainly was last time, too. Anybody that knows me knows how much my family means to me – my brother, my parents, and my wife and kids. It is an emotional deal, but this is not about us. This is about the Green Bay Packers versus the San Francisco 49ers, two great football teams, with the opportunity to go to the Super Bowl.

“It doesn’t get any bigger than that.”