Originally Posted by
pbmax
I believe the Packers roster is Top 5 in the League. I think McCarthy is Top 7 in coaching. I think both of these can be easily defended. You could easily argue Ted for Top 3 and M3 for Top 5, though you would get more resistance. But I think even consensus would grant that this combination in a franchise yields a team that should be Top 4 in overall performance. Any single year can go bad, but over the course of five years the team should outperform the vast majority of the League.
As they have.
I have two critiques of McCarthy through observation. One, is his limiting of his own offensive options in a game to the game plan. Normally, this makes sense, as why risk running plays you have not practiced? However, in games where you zigged and the opponent zagged, your plan has to go out of the window. It goes mainly for offense, but has also happened to the defense. This is most obvious when facing a very good team (Seattle, Giants) but I think you can see it against lesser competition too (happens versus Schwartz and Lovie quite a bit). So while strength of the opponent affects this pattern, I don't think it causes it.
I don't buy this at all. What evidence do you have to assert that he limits his game plan, play selection and/or in-game adjustments more than other coaches? Assuming he does, how has that played out to the team's detriment when his results demonstrate that since 2011, the Packers have the 3rd best record vs. playoff teams in the league? That's 100% fantasyland IMO.
There are good reasons that he sticks to this plan and is called Stubby, in part, because of it. He has seen bad teams flail and try to throw everything at a wall in order to find something positive while in a panic. He has seen teams do this just to get the press of their backs. He doesn't want that, neither do I. By and large, this works for 90-95% of the games and gives his talent rich team the best way to leverage their talent. But matchups matter in the NFL, other teams are close to your talent level, and players have limitations in executing against there good players. Sometimes the best laid plan needs to be tossed in the trashcan. Best example of all time is the Fail Mary game.
Again, his teams are elite in performing against the league's best teams. You use a selection set of 1 game from 4 years ago as evidence supporting such a general conclusion today? Look no further than the Giants game 2 weeks ago to find evidence supporting the opposite conclusion.
Second critique is that he relies on single dimensional (this is likely the wrong mathematical convention, but I hope it makes itself clear) analysis about how to close out and win games. He knows that winning teams run more at the end of games. He knows that total attempts and APC don't matter as much as limiting possession and time later in a game. You can infer this from looking at lists of winning team traits and their late game performances.
But it ignores lost opportunity (in most cases, running means less scoring), lost field position, telegraphing the run and the odd fact that Capers D seems incapably of making a good team work hard during a 2 minute drive. They just don't play zone well, and surrender the boundary too often for clock stoppages.
You assert that he ignores the upside of higher risk/reward options late in games because he doesn't choose to use them in situations when you think he should?
McCarthy doesn't ignore any of that. He takes all of that into account, as well as a full assessment of other options that are higher risk/higher reward and considers how all three phases of the game come together/leverage each other to achieve a winning outcome. It's why he's one of, if not the best finishers in the game in spite of the historical weakness of his defense. He takes action to force the clock to run and/or force the opponent to spend their ability to stop the clock in order to protect his defense as much as possible. Your suggestion/belief that he should be higher risk/higher reward with leads late in games and doesn't properly consider such options is simply misguided. The outcomes from play-to-play are not always perfect, but whatever he's done has been more successful than every other coach/play-caller in the league over the last six years.
Now I will be dead honest. The last time we ran numbers on this, I was surprised at the team's success in close games with leads. So it could be that playoff woes and easily memorable reg season losses have colored the second critique of McCarthy.
But they are much closer to average when they trail, not in the Top 5 at all. Even this is not a slam dunk as they are still better than average AND have very few games in which they trail (fewest aside from NE).
The Packers are 6th best in the league in winning % when trailing going into the 4th quarter since 2011 - 1/1000th of a percentage point behind #5 Arizona - not anywhere remotely close to average but VERY close to Top 5.
So I agree with his approach almost all of the time. But still think the approach in each situation can be improved. I would have a hard time telling you how to fix game planning. But I think end of game situations is more obvious.
Game planning doesn't need to be "fixed" nor do end of game situations. Results indicate he's elite performing in both areas.
I am not nitpicking about McCarthy's large body of success, I want modifications to it so that it works even better. NE level better.
His end-of-game situational performance IS "NE level better". Since 2011, it's better than NE level (by a small margin). It's been the absolute best in the league. You really think if he'd just listen to your critique/advice he'd be perfect?
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