Holding the wrong guy accountable

Now PFT has weighed in on this story from jsonline this morning by Don Walker. Read here.

I share Steve’s concerns re this situation and I don’t think Mike Florio’s too far off here either. I’m just not sure myself what Mike Wood could have possibly said to just get canned like this – especially after 22 years. Outside of threatening someone, I just can’t imagine. And this from a guy who works with termination/employment issues daily. Even if he said something about laying an egg – that’s not can-worthy, as it were.

But what strikes me most about this incident is that Mike McCarthy has no problem “holding Mike Wood accountable” for some comments that weren’t offensive and yet he doesn’t just bench Colledge, Clifton, Lang, Barbre when they’re seemingly trying to get Rodgers sacked. Or he doesn’t say a word to Johnny Jolly after Jolly’s bonehead penalty seriously affected the Vikings’ game. Or he doesn’t say a word to AJ Hawk after Hawk’s defensive holding penalty kept a critical Bucs’ drive alive. Or, he doesn’t say a word to the officials when phantom calls at critical times derail our momentum. Or, he doesn’t call out (or simply fire) Shawn Slocum and James Campen for directing respectively, the worst special teams and offensive line units in the NFL. Or he doesn’t take enough ownership of his own errors and how they contribute to our losses.

My one hope right now is because this week has been an emotional one, some of this emotion can carry over to the game on Sunday. This team is fractured. Over time, McCarthy has taken an increasingly compartmentalized approach, due in part to his hyper focus on all things offense. This team needs a central figure to rally around. It needs a head coach who takes an active role in all the big TEAM decisions – not just the offensive ones. Hopefully, the emotion of these last two losses (you know it’s emotional when Driver’s calling people out) coupled with the heightened sense of urgency the players have developed can bring these guys together for the common goal of winning. While my never-ending Packer optimism cringes as I write this – I’d say quite simply, this game is the season.

Mike McCarthy may not see 2010 as Packer coach

I agree with reader Bucky – this loss can be pinned largely on McCarthy. I was a McCarthy supporter after 2007 because the team played well, but he also seemed to be creative and had a nice command. Since that time, his sense of game flow has sucked and his players continue to make more mistakes than just about any group of players in the league. And even if the personnel on the o-line continues to be weak (which they are), we’re not getting anything out of these guys in pass protection. Not sure how James Campen stays employed. It’s not just the sacks, it’s the number of times Rodgers is flushed out of the pocket too. To be fair, I think Rodgers was also quite bad today – his pocket awareness is not good. While the line continues to suck, Rodgers owns some of this too. But the special teams was also very bad today – and so was the defense. Shockingly bad defense. Dom Capers isn’t earning his paycheck and the defensive players simply aren’t playing well. And don’t just look at the stats from this game – the defense was just non-existent when we most needed them.

I’m trying not to overreact, but it’s really hard. This team isn’t good and we are only .500 because we’ve played a super easy schedule. McCarthy better turn this around fast or he may not be here next year.

Mike McCarthy, start yelling at the officials please

I have wondered if there is at least a small connection between Mike McCarthy’s sideline sheepishness and the Packers being one of the most penalized teams in football during his time here? Sometimes the player is at fault 100%, sometimes the coaches haven’t prepared the players adequately leading to an increased likelihood that penalties will happen – but sometimes, coaches who don’t put any pressure on the officials to make the right calls get weak penalties called against them. In an ideal world, no coach should have to talk to (or yell at) the officials at all during the game because there would be no blown calls. But in reality, there are blown calls and importantly, some officiating crews even go into games looking to call penalties on certain players.

In his 4 years as the Packers’ head coach, Mike McCarthy’s teams have ranked #5 (2009), #2 (2008), #4 (2007) and #9 (2006) in penalties against. That is not good. I can’t help but wonder if at least some of these penalties would not have been called if McCarthy had been more willing to get in an official’s face to dispute a call (think the Al Harris’ phantom pass interference call in Week 1 against Chicago). In fact, it’s interesting to look at the coaches of the teams in the top 10 for penalties in the NFL this year: Dick Jauron, John Harbaugh, Steve Spagnuolo, Rex Ryan, Mike McCarthy, Jim Scwartz, Todd Haley, Ken Whisenhunt, Marvin Lewis, Tom Cable, Wade Phillips. Of these coaches, I think only John Harbaugh, Rex Ryan and Tom Cable (maybe Todd Haley) are likely to lose it on the sidelines over a bad call. The rest are more reticent and seem less willing to do so. (And, it’s also noteworthy that of the top 13 teams in penalties against, only 4 have winning records.)

My point is this: Mike McCarthy could stand to show a bit more fire on the sidelines when there are questionable calls that could affect his team negatively. His tendency instead, is to take ownership for all of the calls, blame the team or his staff or himself, and then to tell us all that he has to watch the game film essentially before rendering any opinions on anything. When he responds with these answers, it sometimes ends up sounding like a coach who may not have full faith in what he sees. Same goes for not arguing calls. Watch Mike Tomlin, watch Sean Payton, watch Tom Coughlin – these guys will make it known to all that they’ve seen a bad call because they trust what they’ve seen live on the field during the game. And maybe, just maybe, voicing their displeasure will make the officials at least think twice the next time they want to throw another flag. I’m not asking McCarthy to become Bobby Knight here- that would be obnoxious. But I do think he could occasionally let the officials know that it’s not OK for the team to be called for penalties constantly.

Sorry McCarthy – we need a better answer here

Well, I’ve been waiting for the explanation as to why the team cut Aaron Rouse. Here is what Greg Bedard has for us so far:

• On Rouse: His ability to be consistent and his development were the factors, but there were a lot of them;
• On choosing Rouse over Anthony Smith: There’s a number of different factors go into it. Timing was an issue. It’s not accurate (that they chose Rouse over Smith);
• “It’s a real challenge for our assistant coaches, no doubt,” McCarthy said of the situation at safety;
• On Rouse: “These decisions are made with a lot of information.”

I’m not opposed to signing Matt Giordano and yes, I understand they’re saying Collins should be fine for this weekend. I also can’t pretend to know exactly what “information” McCarthy is referring to here. Still, I find the timing of this strange and foolish. It makes me wonder a bit if Darren Perry (DB coach) is hot-headed and decided he just didn’t like Rouse on the team anymore (maybe he did the same thing with Anthony Smith?).

Still bitter re Tyrell Sutton

Just reading today again that Brandon Jackson is expected to miss this week as well. Right now, we have 2 healthy halfbacks. Halfback is a position that sees plenty of injuries. I know the team thinks John Kuhn is able to switch in and play halfback because he did it in college – I don’t. That would be ugly. If Sutton were here now, he could be getting some playing time and doing some damage on the field because the guy can flat out play. Even though Jackson still has potential and I don’t think he’s bad, he has some trouble staying healthy. I know McCarthy/Thompson always have their reasons for cutting guys, but I still think cutting Sutton was a mistake. The fact that he was picked up instantly and put on a roster  of a team that already had 3 quality RBs (Carolina) and not put on a practice squad, offers support for the argument that this was a mistake.

Couple the Sutton situation with the Desmond Bishop situation (plus a few others over the years), and it leads me to a small worry that sometimes MM/TT overlook obvious, obvious talent. Generally, they evaluate talent reasonably well, but there are times when I can’t possibly imagine how they arrive at their decisions. Cutting Tyrell Sutton is one of those decisions.

Key Bishop mention by McCarthy today

Read below for a quick summary of McCarthy’s press conference today from the Insiders Blog at the GBPG:

On linebackers: Played Matthews more than expected. Thought Barnett was up around 40 plays, and that’s what they were looking for. Great asset to have so many playmakers. Have to find way to get Bishop involved, too. He got special-teams game ball.

Perhaps McCarthy saw Poppinga doing nothing…again. Just glad that there was specific mention of need to get Bishop involved. Please let this be an indication that he will be playing more – please.

A subtle factor in the Favre divorce?

Here is a question: what role did Aaron Rodgers’ high football IQ play in the Brett Favre divorce process? At one point I believe in 2007, McCarthy said that the offense under Favre had only learned 1/4 of his total playbook. McCarthy didn’t say this as a crack on Favre – more as a matter of fact. Was Favre reluctant to learn the other 3/4 of the playbook? It’s well documented that Favre has a narrowed preference for all things West Coast and that learning new plays especially later in his career was not something he was much interested in. Did MM ever feel like the true potential of his offensive ideas could only be realized with a potentially more cerebral (or at least more willing-to-learn) QB like Rodgers? Again, I’m not saying Favre is dumb, I don’t think he is, and I know there were lots of other factors in the divorce – but I wonder if this was even a small part of the discussion.

This year, my guess is that we’ll see Rodgers run a huge variety of plays – leaving defenses often guessing and fans once again praising McCarthy’s creativity. While there were times last year when the playcalling was poor/predictable, that seemed to me to be toward the beginning of the year when I think MM was trying to make it easy for Rodgers. But starting with the last 4-5 games of last year through this preseason especially, it seems Rodgers has grown more comfortable calling a greater variety of plays. Perhaps he’s now tapped into the other 3/4 of MM’s ideas.

Your thoughts?

Rodgers calling plays?

This morning on 620 WTMJ radio, I heard an interesting quote from Aaron Rodgers. He was talking about how close he and Mike McCarthy are and how he feels confident that McCarthy has lots of confidence in him. Rodgers said something to the effect of “he trusts me to call the plays…”

While this may not be a big deal really, and it may in fact be a simple reference to him being granted the ability to audible when he sees fit – it make me wonder if Rodgers may have more of a role in play-calling than Favre ever seemed to. I wouldn’t be surprised because I think Rodgers has a very good understanding of the offense, the coaches clearly have lots of confidence in him and  he is very bright and quick to diagnose. I wonder if Rodgers may get to a point with McCarthy like Peyton Manning in Indy: where he knows the offensive system so well he’ll be able to call most plays. Anyway, I just thought this was an interesting comment for a 1-year starter to make when his predecessor, outside of an occasional audible or freak play, seemed to take most offensive play-calling direction from the sidelines.

McCarthy facing must-win season

We have written on a few occasions about how this season will be a critical one for the future of the franchise, particularly for Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy. If it’s bad, TT and MM may both be ushered out. If it’s OK (.500ish), my guess is that they’ll be given one more year to improve the team. If it’s good, they may end up being safe through the respective ends of their contracts.

Rob Reischel, a writer I must admit I’m not too familiar with, wrote a thoughtful piece this morning over at jsonline. Read here. His contention is similar to ours’ – that MM in particular needs to put together a decent season or he could lose his job.

For what it’s worth, I want to clarify my present position on Mike McCarthy. I know we were critical of him last year and I stand by that criticism. He made poor decisions at some crucial moments and his play-calling didn’t flow well too often. And, our team finished a disappointing 6-10 – which was due to some seriously poor play by some of our players, but also coaching. I like that MM took ownership of this – the first step to improving oneself of course, is admitting the problem (actually, that’s not really true – the first step is creating a problem in the first place, then you can admit it…)

But I still think he’s a good coach. I think this year, we’ll be reminded quickly that our coach does indeed have a gifted offensive mind. I have a hunch that because McCarthy has put the defense in the hands of someone he has more faith in, he’ll be able to focus more on offense. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Pack’s offense ends up a top 5 offense this coming year (don’t want to reveal too much this early, but for some reason, I’m quite optimistic about this coming season). Anyway, I just wanted to make sure readers knew that I do support McCarthy and thinks he’s a good coach. Of course, if we’re 2-14 next year, I reserve the right to modify my opinion!

Ditch mediocrity by switching to a 3-4 defense

One common argument I have heard against moving to a 3-4 defense is that we presently don’t have the personnel for it. I have three thoughts on this: 1) we obviously don’t have the personnel for a 4-3 either; 2) don’t we have to make serious personnel changes anyway?; and 3) why are we clinging to a style of defense that has yielded mediocre results at best for years? Would it hurt to try something new like a 3-4? The only time I remember the Packers D being good in the last few decades was during the mid 90s with Reggie and company. Well, boredom carried me to ridiculous levels just now because I decided to see how the Packers have finished in the main defensive category of yards per game over the course of the last 12 years or so. (I didn’t go back further in part because this took too long and also because our defenses just sucked before that.)

• 2008 = #20 overall, #26 rush, #12 pass
• 2007 = #11 overall, #14 rush, #12 pass
• 2006 = #12 overall, #13 rush, #17 pass
• 2005 = #7 overall, #23 rush, #1 pass
• 2004 = #25 overall, #14 rush, #25 pass
• 2003 = #17 overall, #10 rush, #23 pass
• 2002 = #12 overall, #21 rush, #3 pass
• 2001 = #12 overall, #16 rush, #15 pass
• 2000 = #15 overall, #8 rush, #19 pass
• 1999 = #19 overall, #22 rush, #18 pass
• 1998 = #4 overall, #4 rush, #10 pass
• 1997 = #7 overall, #20 rush, #8 pass
• 1996 = #1 overall, #4 rush, #1 pass

Sure there were a couple decent seasons from the pass D, but overall, the defense has been consistently mediocre. Only 2 times in the last 12 years have the Packers had a defense finish in the top 5 overall in yards per game allowed, 1996 and 1998. Of course, LeRoy Butler recently shared with the 1250 WSSP listening audience that during those  years it was common for the defense to shift from their 4-3 base to a 3-4 set. On the show, LeRoy talked about how effective their use of the 3-4 was back then and how in general, a 3-4 defense gives a team a greater variety of looks/options with regard to blitzing, coverage and gap fills (if you will, I made that expression up…I have to admit, I did consider not admitting I made this expression up so I could mislead you all into believing I’m down with modern defensive lingo – but I’m not down with any defensive lingo so I decided to come clean).

Anyway, my point is this: why not just give it a try? Whether it’s Mike Nolan or Keith Butler or Andy Hayes. Just give it a try.

(Note: as I sifted through the defensive stats of the last 12 years, it wasn’t surprising to me to see Pittsburgh up near the top almost every year in every defensive category. By now, you all know of my developing man-crush on Pittsburgh’s D Coordinator Dick LeBeau – he’s a genius. Oh, and he has used a 3-4 for years.)