Watching a Mike McCarthy press conference always brings out my emotional side. The chuckles, the sneers, the jaw-drops, the yelling, the abusing of my computer monitor. Good thing I don’t work in an office full of people.
I am often left wondering, does McCarthy really believe the s**t he drops on us every week? Does he get a kick out of insulting beat reporters and fans with the same empty promises and catch-phrases? After this Tampa debacle, a real coach would have just come out and said: We stunk today – players, coaches, collectively we were horses**t. I promise you it will NOT happen again as long as I am coach of this team.
Instead, what was heard was the Mike Milquetoast show. A few examples:
QUOTE: “We have four individuals on our offensive staff that I’d be very confident in coaching the offensive line… I think Shawn Slocum has done a good job in putting his print on what we’re trying to do… But our problems to me aren’t teaching and scheme, they do not fall in that area.”
MY COMMENT: Yet every week, the Packers are hurt by self-inflicted wounds. Missed assignments, mis-communications, bad decisions, penalties, etc. And he thinks the coaches have all done a good job. So is coach McCarthy saying the players are too dumb to execute what they are taught? Or is he saying he’s coached them perfectly and they’re just not good enough?
QUOTE: “We don’t need wholesale change. We may need to adjust some things and that will be our focus. …I’m very confident in the issues that we’ve had in pass protection, that they are correctable.”
MY COMMENT: Half the season is gone. NOW the coach thinks he MAY need to adjust some things? There goes another clump of my hair… It’s also heartening to hear that the pass protection issues are correctable. Whew! That’s a relief. I’ll just wait here patiently…
QUOTE: “If there was an error that was made leading up to this game it was probably too much work this week.”
MY COMMENT: Earlier in the season, Coach McCarthy was called out for possibly not keeping the players focused in practice. Now he thinks he may be working them too hard? So basically, he doesn’t know how to run a practice correctly and efficiently.
Here’s what Packers great Leroy Butler had to say about this: “The guys weren’t in full pads all week, so it’s hard to overwork a group that’s not in pads. If they were in pads Wednesday and Thursday, I could see him overworking them where they’re tired… But if you have the youngest team in the league, they need to be overworked every day because you’re seeing the same mistakes. If he did overwork them, then they’re not working on the stuff that needs to be worked on.” How great is that?
QUOTE: “There is structure. To have a new message or a new messenger, I’m confident that’s not what our football team needs right now. They have a very loud, direct, clear message in the team meetings day in and day out. So there is no question or uncertainty of what we are asking everybody to do, coaches and players, and the accountability of what needs to be done.”
MY COMMENT: I think coach McCarthy is not being honest with himself. What is the message? That if we make mistakes, we’ll “fix’em” next practice? Where is the accountability? One more quote from Leroy Butler: “But he needs to be more of a dad than a friend to these guys. Your dad disciplines you, but also loves you. Your friend tells you what you want to hear even when you’re playing bad.”
SUMMARY:
Mike McCarthy is failing in many aspects of his job. Mostly, he seems to accept mediocrity while regurgitating the same old excuses and empty promises. He has proven to be a poor leader of men and his game-day decision making incites more questions than answers. His post-game press conferences ostensibly do the same.
Mike McCarthy has 3 1/2 years left on his contract that pays him approximately $4,000,000 per year. Despite the widespread clamoring, McCarthy is not likely to be fired during the season. It would also take a monumental failure during the second half of this year for the Packers to eat the final three years of that contract. It’s not something the Packers will want to do, and I’m sure Mike will tell his bosses the same s**t we are hearing: It’s correctable…
By the way, if you haven’t read it, the full Leroy Butler interview can be found here:
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