McCarthy and "Close Games"

[mraynrand]

The apologists continue. Even without the injuries MM screws up.

Nah, just reality. Harv has it right, especially after all this time to evaluate McCarthy. He is what his record says he is: An above average coach who might never be able to win it all.

[mmmdk]

Coughlin might be on the hot seat if no playoffs for G-Men...why isn't McCarthy in the same boat as Coughlin?

Throw the injury card and I'll go Nero on ya

[packerbacker1234]

I remember Burt Sugar saying something like "beware of declaring a guy great because of HOW he LOST to mike tyson. He still lost." Razor Ruddok never did amount to much despite putting up a lively fight against tyson (twice I think). I was proud of our defense and offense against the patriots, but the ST failed us again, and with a lead MM abandon the successful running game late. Until we commit to the run, and have success I'm not declaring us anything. We should have won that game despite everything that went wrong. If you want to point to one thing you can count on being better, its that Rodgers is less likely to throw that pick 6....but not impossible. I want to beat the giants before I start feeling too good about losing valiantly.

Difference is, unlike that boxer, we actually had big wins this season going into the NE game. 9-0 Shut out win on the road against the Jets. We also beat the Eagles on the road, who are looking to be division winners.

The rest of our wins, admittedly, aren't really that impressive coming against teams who are bad. And, in facing bad teams, we even lost two we should of won (detroit, redskins). We lost our two biggest games against Atlanta and the Patriots, but neither by more than 4 points. If anything, we can "compete" with any team in the NFL. Just something needs to happen late in the 4th for us to finally hold onto, or complete, a victory. Be it Matt Flynn/Rodgers driving us for a TD at the end of hte game, james jones not fumblinmg away our game winning drive against chicago, ST not letting an offensive linemen return it 71 yards, or not abandoning the run game too early.

Whatever the case may be, we are "this close" to being a top tier team. The question now is: Two weeks left, playoffs on the line... have we learned anything? I hope so.

[rbaloha1]

Maybe. We'd have no way to verify that though, would we?

Though there may be solid statistical evidence that proves the opposite is true.

On one of these threads someone did a nice breakdown of our offense since MM took over as HC. There it clearly illustrates how much MM's screw ups have hamstrung this offense both in yards gained and points scored.

Without a doubt, MM offense can put up great stats -- even Sherman wit the U71 also put up great stats. Its the intangibles MM lacks that hurts down the stretch.

MM's loyalty to assistant coaches is also hurting the team.

[Fritz]

I found it humorous that in a Bears thread (about how they've been facing lots of second and third string QB's), somebody pointed out that many of the Bears' wins this season have been by only a few points...and used that fact to conclude that the Bears are "lucky."


So MM loses close games and he's a shitty coach; Lovie wins close games and he's lucky. Geez.

[rbaloha1]

IMO Zero 4th quarter wins says it all. How can you lead a team during crucial games when the players know they have failed to win a close game this season?

[Smidgeon]

Slocum sucked before the backups to backups were playing ST; he sucked last year as well. The head ST coach sucked and we hired his backup as well. Clearly the backup strategy on ST sucks

I'm not a huge fan of Slocum myself, but maybe he's not all that bad. The Special Teams penalties have got to be way down this year. I remember reading somewhere that he changed the scheme this offseason to a different kind of blocking (straight ahead instead of on one side). The results in that department has been noticeable. There has been a drastic improvement in the one area this year. Maybe it takes a couple years to fix something as horrendous as the GB STs have been. Maybe Slocum isn't the guy. But he got results on fixing the penalties...

[sharpe1027]

I remember a lot of posters complaining about Shottenheimer because of the terrible job he seemed to be doing with the secondary. He was fired and the glaring mistakes were eliminated and overall play was much improved. I see the same things being said about with Slocum here and I would not be surprised if history repeats itself.

[Fritz]

I think we can blame this year's mess on Kurt Schottenheimer and the the weightlifting coach who screwed up Justin Harrell's back. It's all on them.

[pbmax]

This is old stuff that was mentioned much earlier. Only now it is becoming an issue since the Packers may not make the playoffs.

Try no fourth quarter wins this season. MM chokes in crucial situations.

Its Harbaugh time!

If the Packers hire Jim Harbaugh, I will start to watch soccer instead.

[pbmax]

IMO Zero 4th quarter wins says it all. How can you lead a team during crucial games when the players know they have failed to win a close game this season?

Same thing you say to them when you win in the first, second and third quarter.

[vince]

There's no chance of the Packers firing Mike McCarthy, who's done an outstanding job getting this cobbled together team iin playoff contention this year and has put together some of the most prolific offenses in the league in his tenure, all while turning over and putting together an outstaning defensive staff - much less hiring Jim Harbaugh or anyone else.

McCarthy has work to do with regard to special teams and he, like all coaches is far from perfect, but the notion that he should be or is going to be fired is ridiculous at this point. They all get fired sooner or later, so hang in there mm and rb - you'll be proven right eventually, but the talk of McCarthy getting fired is grossly misplaced right now.

[Fritz]

Thank you, Vince. A voice of sanity.

[rbaloha1]

Same thing you say to them when you win in the first, second and third quarter.

Close games are won in the 4th quarter -- MM has zero cred.

[rbaloha1]

There's no chance of the Packers firing Mike McCarthy, who's done an outstanding job getting this cobbled together team iin playoff contention this year and has put together some of the most prolific offenses in the league in his tenure, all while turning over and putting together an outstaning defensive staff - much less hiring Jim Harbaugh or anyone else.

McCarthy has work to do with regard to special teams and he, like all coaches is far from perfect, but the notion that he should be or is going to be fired is ridiculous at this point. They all get fired sooner or later, so hang in there mm and rb - you'll be proven right eventually, but the talk of McCarthy getting fired is grossly misplaced right now.

Lets wait until the end of the season. Should the trend continue the 0-line and st coaches could be gone.

[rbaloha1]

If the Packers hire Jim Harbaugh, I will start to watch soccer instead.

Do you have the soccer channel yet?

[rbaloha1]

Thank you, Vince. A voice of sanity.

Voice of sanity for Packer fans denying reality.

[HarveyWallbangers]

What happens if we beat the Giants and Bears in the final two weeks and then beat the Bears in the first round of the playoffs?

[Joemailman]

What happens if we beat the Giants and Bears in the final two weeks and then beat the Bears in the first round of the playoffs?

It only counts if we beat them by 4 or less.

[Gunakor]

Without a doubt, MM offense can put up great stats -- even Sherman wit the U71 also put up great stats.

My point in referencing the stats over the years was to point out an anomaly this season. Our offense has been top 5, top 10 in both points and yards in each of the last 3 seasons. This year they are not. I contend this is very specifically due to the loss of Ryan Grant. Without a legitimate workhorse at RB half the playbook gets thrown out the window. Not only the run game struggles, but play action doesn't work either. Then you lose your threat at TE and become even more constricted in your playcalling. At the same time, opposing defenses have less to plan against, making it that much more difficult to move the ball against them.

My post was, after all, in response to your contention that even without injuries MM will and has always screwed it up. I just wanted to illustrate that he hasn't screwed up as much as you'd like to believe during his time here, and that perhaps injuries at key positions have indeed played a very significant role in our offensive struggles this season.