Murphy Cleans House: McCarthy, Capers, Thompson Fired! (next year) Well, it came to a premature end, but capping off the 2015 season was indeed a Rush. The Mrs. was already out in the driveway warming up the car while us men stayed steadfast in our buddy’s living room until the very last play was over and all of his beer was consumed. We all jumped up and half-skip/danced when the Working Man, Jeff Janis, thrilled us with a long bomb reception that split double coverage to eat up more than half the field with just a few ticks left on the clock, and then caught that Hail Mary pass (again in double coverage) with no time left to get within 1 point of the Cardinals. Janis proved that he could Fly by Night defenders in front of the largest-ever Saturday NFL primetime TV crowd, and vindicated all of Packer nation who screamed for his number to be called throughout the season. Too bad McCarthy waited until the last game of the year to give him a shot. But, In the End, McCarthy in essence said the Best I Can do is lay-up and cross my fingers in overtime. When questioned in the post-game conference why he bucked conventional wisdom (to go for the 2-point conversion when on the road in order to win the game instead of yielding to the home team for overtime), McCarthy said "Quite frankly, I have a loser mentality. I'm tired of all the negativity by the media and I knew that if we lost in overtime I could blame my players for failing to execute, or blowing coverage, or being too fat, instead of me getting blamed for failing to prepare my receivers for a game winning situation with the best QB in the league from the 1.5 yard line when their defense is gassed from chasing us all over the entire length of the field late in the 4th quarter on our final possession … and you can put that in big capital letters." Of course that did not sit well with Packers President Mark Murphy, and he publically put McCarthy on notice after ‘the last straw’ when the coach was spotted in Lakeside Park near Chicago. Quoting Murphy, “Myself and the entire Packers organization is deeply concerned regarding Mike’s tendencies as of late, and I made it clear to him that he either returns to the Packer Way and wins the next 2 consecutive Super Bowls to validate his distinguished position as Packers head coach, or he’ll find himself inhaling Ditka’s rectal air on the set of ESPN Sunday Countdown.” Reflecting back to 1919, we have won 13 championships since then with 97 different Packer teams. Looking forward, we should expect more than 13 additional Lombardi trophies from the next 97 Packer teams between now and 2112. Mark Murphy does, and he is ready to clean house. His 1st decision will be who to replace Ted Thompson with (and when). The good news is that Murphy has a Plan A and Plan B... either snare John Schneider (DePere native) away from the Seahawks, or promote current Director of Bad Draft Picks, Eliot Wolf. You can’t get Something for Nothing so Coach suspects a GM swap between the teams, because Schneider holds Green Bay Closer to the Heart. Then the new GM will have to decide whether to replace McCarthy with Darrell Bevell or Jim Harbaugh (both with Wisconsin ties: Bevell the Rose Bowl winning QB at UW, Harbaugh’s parents live in Mequon and his dad was an associate athletic director at Marquette). Coach isn’t a betting man, but I can see the forest through The Trees and my odds are that Schneider / Harbaugh will combine for 8 Lombardi trophies in 10 years for Green Bay (4 in a row, twice, owing to a freak rash of injuries once every 5 years or so). This Coaching hire should also help the Badgers football team. That said, Mark Murphy has Freewill do choose whomever he wants, but the sooner the better because McCarthy mediocrity must go. This isn’t a Witch Hunt… the fact is that McCarthy always chokes in the Limelight because he can’t handle success – just like he warned us when he got hired. This Coach is convinced now more than ever that the Packers players won Super Bowl 45 despite Mike McCarthy, not because of him. (ouch) We still have The Weapon, Aaron Rodgers, but the Countdown is ticking on his career. The time for change is NOW, people. I might sound like I’m Losing It, but really as a fan and an owner of the Packers I have the right to expect championships every year and stop settling for 10-6 seasons with early playoff exits. So Murphy’s Distant Early Warning of requiring that McCarthy deliver 2 Super Bowl wins in the next 2 years is about right: that achievement would put McCarthy’s average SB wins/year on par with the standard, Bill Belichick (Click on link). But we’re gonna need to wrangle a few key free agents to fill some holes, and that will likely take Big Money. Here’s are some interesting UFA candidates in areas of need: Tight Ends: Vernon Davis, Anquan Boldin, Antonio Gates, Rocky Chair Line Backers: Danny Trevathan, Von Miller, Sean Weatherspoon, Will Notpay Offensive Linemen: Jake Long, Mike Adams, Russell Okung, Buzz Killington Wide Receivers: Dough Nut, Zip Zilch, Nada Wun, James Jones History tells us, though, that Time Stands Still for Ted Thompson during the free agency fury. Not that Ted NEVER gets ahold of free agents from other teams; but, instead of paying for the best playmakers at a position of need, Ted tends to deal with second-tier "bargain" players who don’t stand a Ghost of a Chance to make a difference (with maybe 2 exceptions). If I Cut to the Chase we probably will need to give away Half the World in order to get decent talent, but it worked for Elway this year … He fired coach John Fox after not returning to the Super Bowl 1-year removed from it because he couldn’t get that One Little Victory. By doing so, Elway’s actions spoke louder than words for the Shape of Things to come in Denver, and then he doubled down by bringing in top tier free agents to become the best defense in the league overnight – and now here they are with home field advantage on the cusp of another Super Bowl only 1-year later. So We Hold On with Hope that Ted will finally decide to go for a major upgrade, too. ...but I doubt it. Create a seam here - X's & O's about the game or a scheme Rodgers hopes we will long remember his 2015 performance with the two wonderful bombs from him to Janis on that last drive of the game against the Cardinals. He needs us to -- in order to cover up for his mistakes, big and small, in that game and others, that have taken away yards, points, and wins. ARod has made way too many uncharacteristic errors this year reading defenses before the snap and identifying the open man, with indecision inside and outside the pocket, and ignoring entire chunks of the field (for example in AZ, the area occupied by Patrick Peterson). Pile on his almost human-like imprecision this year (reference his bad "mechanics" throwing off the back foot and side-arm slings -- more on that later), and searching (in vain) for the big play deep at the expense of the effective check-down or developing underneath route (see also, Troy Aikman to Emmitt Smith in the early 90's). All of which brought ARod to have a Cutler-esque passer rating of only 65.5 (22/38, 160 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT) before the last desperate final drive in AZ, and down to 92.7 this year overall (his worst in his 8 years as a starter) amongst his career passer rating of 104.1. See for yourself. These are just some examples from the AZ and MN games, but they pretty much represent ARod’s m.o. for the whole year... WTF - The Coach's take on a bad ref call or a bad play call or the like Once again, we got hosed by the ref’s. The last Cardinals touchdown was no touchdown at all. Recall the ball was deflected and popped up toward the back of the endzone where a AZ receiver was standing to catch it. Chris Collinsworth said after the touchdown as NBC showed the replay, “…and if you’re a Packer fan this is just going to be salt in your wound when you see the illegal pick and holding by the receiver before he caught the deflected ball for a touchdown.” Well said, Chris, well said. Before AZ’s last field goal, you remember it … they got the ball when we didn’t convert a 1st down because the ref’s didn’t call a blatant pass interference on Jared Abbrederis which would have either been a 1st down catch or a penalty 1st down. So instead of continuing a touchdown march being behind only by 4, we had less than a minute to go with 90 yards in front of us and being down by 7. Yet, we pulled it off. And how about that coin toss? Didn't flip! (Click on link) In the post-game interview, Rodgers says that he always calls the opposite side of what the ref shows before he flips it. The ref had a “heads” showing, so Rodgers called “tails” but the coin never flipped – it just went straight up and down! Then the ref picked up the coin and put the “tails” side up, but didn’t let Rodgers re-call it (which he would have changed to “heads”), and when the coin landed heads-up the Cardinals were awarded the ball. Amazing – the ref’s managed to screw us even with the coin toss. But it should have never gotten to that point!… WHY DIDN’T MCCARTHY GO FOR 2???!!!???!!!???!!! Oh, I heard him after the game… “I didn’t feel comfortable with the personnel we had to run that play.” Soooo many reasons to fire him just for a dumbass statement like that. Here are just a couple:
The Bears Still Suck - the Coach has proof They hail from the Land of Stinkin’ and they are the poopshoot of the NFC North Division again this year: The Chicago Bears! This can’t be good … the Bears have 20, count ‘em, 20 Unrestricted Free Agents this year. That’s almost HALF of the team’s roster. Those sorts of numbers would kill any halfway respectable NFL team, but in the Bears case most of these players wouldn’t make any other NFL team's roster anyways so it should be a lesser impact on them than it would be on real NFL caliber teams. Realistically, other than Alshon Jeffery and Matt Forte, you probably wouldn’t even recognize the names of the other 18 guys unless you have a police scanner. I would imagine neither of those guys will want to stay in Chicago any longer (one can only stand so much losing), so the Bears will suck even worse next year. It would be funny if the Packers picked up Alshon Jeffery (who, BTW, would probably produce more than Randall Cobb so we could let Cobb and his salary go) and then he scored several touchdowns against the Bears next year – you know, for the fun of just sticking it to them. Udder Stuff – commentary from the Badger Underground Now we cherry pick the great Badgers out there who really belong back here to play for Green Bay. For the tippy top talent we would need to pull off some blockbuster trades to get J.J. Watt (give Houston three 1st rounders -- 1 in this year’s draft, plus toss in Datone Jones and Nick Perry for good measure) and Joe Thomas (give the Cleveland Browns our Bahktiari and another backup lineman and a 1st rounder in 2017), and undoubtedly these fellas would give us a hometown discount on salary just for the chance to suit up for the Packers. In a much less flashy move, we can trade Eddie Lacy to San Diago for Melvin Gordon III in a “sometimes it’s just putting the player in the right situation” situation. We need a TE (or 2, or 3) and a Punter, so we get Lance Kendricks from L.A. in exchange for water and common sense, and Brad Nortman is a UFA. Two draft picks in late rounds: Derek Watt FB/TE, and Tanner McEvoy as a Special Teams juggernaut and journeyman (Safety, Wildcat, etc.). Shoot, even McCarthy could win 11 games with that lineup. We're gonna kick your a$$ - predictions for the next game Presuming we can't simply load up with Badger talent, winning the next game / division / conference / Super Bowl will take a very successful GM effort by Ted. It's not complicated, though. Coach agrees with the Wolf/Thompson first-step to resign your own. After all, you pretty much know exactly what you're getting. Don’t be afraid to let guys go, though, even if they’re good in the locker room. We need the BEST players. The next easy step is to take the best available player in the 1st round. Going for need in lieu of the best talent on the board in round 1 usually doesn't work out as well as anticipated (see also, Jamal Reynolds, Antaun Edwards, Ahmad Carroll, Justin Harrell, Derek Sherrod, Nick Perry, Datone Jones, you get the idea). None of these guys ever made the Pro Bowl (some of them never made the starting lineup), but Pro Bowlers and future Hall of Famers WERE drafted after these guys because they had superior talent – and that is what you go for in the 1st round: superior, game-changer talent, regardless of the position. TT did this when he picked Aaron Rodgers, Clay Mathews, and Bryan Bulaga, and I think those paid off. Go for needs in subsequent rounds or even free agency, when the risk/reward ratio is much less. It’s ok to draft in a position of need if the guy also happens to be the 1 or 2 best available talents, but that’s a very fortunate nice-to-have. The largest position of need this year for the draft is probably Left Tackle (earlier rounds), because Bahktiari is pretty good, but not elite. Plus he’s a free agent in 2017 and we need depth with talented O-linemen (see also, our line sucked this year). Other than LT the only screaming need (to me) is TE, and there ain’t a whole lot of UFA’s out there to make our team better. We have to get a 6'5" plus, 4.6-4.7 / 40 up-the-seam guy. We seem to be the only team in the league without one. Interesting prospects are Hunter Henry from Arkansas and Jake McGee out of Florida (both are 6’-6” and roughly 255-lbs, with a 40’s of 4.7). A late-round project could be Darion Griswold of Arkansas State (6’-5” at 264-lbs and a 40 of 4.67). The D-line always seems fraught with uncertainty - no matter who is drafting. This could be the right year to re-sign our own (Mike Daniels already in the books, need to get Raji and Guion locked up – figuratively there, and Josh Boyd comes back from IR next year). This year’s crop of ILB draft talent is stronger than last year’s class, so maybe Ted strategically waited a year so he could get a couple prospects in mid-rounds that should hit and then maybe slide the Claymaker back outside. That said, it made no sense to me to declare CMIII as an OLB in MM’s post-season interview; unless, maybe “pitch perfect” whined to Eminem. One last parting thought on line backers… Peppers has a really high cap number next year (see also, Randall Cobb), so I would make him sign for $5 mil or let him go - he was a joke on 70% of plays. On the 30% he showed up he was effective on 51.3%. Do the math. Next year, aside from draft picks and other free agents that will be new to the Green & Gold, the players we already have need to play better. Starting with #12. His 2015 preseason shoulder bruise when sacked at Pittsburgh (remember that?) had a bigger impact this year than people give credit, and that injury was largely overshadowed by Jordy’s blown ACL during the same game. (If you watched as closely as Coach Clarahanson, you would have noticed that ARod altered his throwing motion following that game.) With Jordy out of that game, Rodgers held onto the ball too long and got sacked, and injured, and after that was never able to get back to the performance level of the guy that he was last year (see also, “yips”). When reached for comment regarding Rodgers’ ability to play through the pain, former Packer quarterback Brett Favre blurted “The most pain he ever had to endure was probably the least pain that I ever felt when I played. I told you guys he was a pussy. That faggot tried to kiss me once after a game. Good thing I had my helmet on.” A couple oddities, though… even injured, Aaron could still throw wicked-long passes with seemingly little effort. Also, injury doesn’t explain why he can’t find open guys as explained in X’s and O’s above. Oft open (but ignored by Rodgers) receivers got little attention from press conference reporters or from in-game announcers, but we all saw it at Lambeau and again when DVR’ing road games. I guess no one wants to be the guy to call out a future Hall of Famer and be the Jim Gray (Click on link) of the NFL. Oh yeah, and Eddie Lacy, he definitely became a fat ass. Gotta agree with Eminem on that one. He will have a short leash come OTA’s. Who knows, maybe Eddie will drop 40-lbs and win the 2016 OTA MVP award. It did wonders for the last 2 receipients, Dvante Adams and Colt Lyerla. On second thought, maybe that’s worse than the Madden curse.
Lastly, our defense dropped too many picks this year. I know, “That’s why they play defense, because they can’t catch.” But to advance to the Super Bowl we can’t drop the easy ones like we did down the stretch this year. The teams that won their playoff games made those picks when they were given the chance. Again, it comes down to coaching (or lack thereof). McCarthy calls it “a point of emphasis” in practice to make interceptions when opportunities present themselves, which falls short of this Coach’s “expectation that we will intercept the ball every chance we get.” …or gimme 10 pushups, in practice or a game. JB - Packer players you forgot about, but stories you'll remember about them Top 10 Packers of All Time
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Author"Coach" is the insightful collective brain and funny bone of a few legendary Packer fans who provide everything you need to know (and what Packers beat writers often plagiarize) about the Green & Gold, plus a weekly guest appearance by The Badger Underground. Archives
November 2022
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