One sentence summary, my long-winded analysis of 2008

[Patler]

I read this in an article. I know we have discussed it, but phrased in a single sentence this way it really hit home as to why the season was so frustrating to so many:

They lost seven times when they were either ahead or tied with less than 4 minutes left in regulation.

Seven times the game was there to be won, and they failed. Thinking back to those times we can remember offensive failures, defensive failures, special teams failures, and yes, questionable coaching decisions.

In 13 of 16 games the team either won, or was in position to win at the very end of the game. Thirteen times! That would seem to indicate the talent level is high enough to compete with anyone. The distressing thing is that failures were not limited to a single aspect of the team. It was everyone. It was offense, it was defense, it was special teams. Yet each of these units was good enough to contribute to the team winning the game or being in position to win games in the final possessions for each team in 13 of 16 games.

If it was one part of the team that was the cause of the failures most of the time you could work to fix it. It is much more difficult when the entire team lets you down at one time or another. How do you fix that in one off season?

The Question. -What was the cause? I think it really boils down to just two possibilities:

1. Coaching. Not just the head coach, his entire staff. An overall philosophical approach that is too soft. Schemes that are "soft" and approaches to practicing that are "soft". We've debated the schemes many times, but not so much the approaches to practice. Very little hitting in practice, training camp with lots of time off, greatly limiting the number of two-a-day practices, not having two practices on consecutive days, practicing indoors when the weather is the least bit bad, and always when it gets cold, not even opening the indoor practice to the outdoor temperatures, etc. etc. In short, being demanding of the players in talk, but not in action; making being a professional football player just a little too easy, too convenient.

2. Just one of those things that happens from time to time.


The Answer- Number 1 above. An overall approach that is too soft. too convenient, too easy. Soft schemes make it easy on the opponent. Soft coaching philosophies do not prepare the players to perform at crunch time, perform with injuries, perform when it matters the most, perform under adverse and pressure packed conditions.

The Evidence- Failures by all aspects of the team, failures in crunch time, mental mistakes, mis-communication, inconsistent performances, abundant penalties, etc. result from soft coaching. Letting teams hang around to win at the end, not putting teams away, not beating the opponents confidence level result from soft schemes.

The Solution- Toughen up the program. I don't necessarily think it requires wholesale changes of the staff. Maybe a few changes, but more importantly a commitment to being less "soft" in scheme and in coaching philosophy. McCarthy has continually shown a willingness to "tweak" his practice philosophy, and hopefully will realize he may have gone too far in one direction. Whether he can or will toughen up his schemes remains to be seen.

If the team were not talented, it would not have won or been in position to win 13 times. There is talent on the roster. Sure, there are areas that need to be improved, but a foundation exists. Now the staff needs to get the most out of it.

[mission]

Which is why I sit here in complete amazement that no one is at least somewhat questioning whether MM should return. All this talk about other coaches, or Sanders, or whatever and no one sees an overall lack of intensity with this team.

It might end up being argued, 10 years from now, that TT's poorest decision, was retaining a coach with his same collected and laidback demeanor. Call me old school but guys like Bill Cowher get their teams to personify them...

I, for one, do not think MM is the answer. Even if I'm the only one on record...

[Patler]

Which is why I sit here in complete amazement that no one is at least somewhat questioning whether MM should return. All this talk about other coaches, or Sanders, or whatever and no one sees an overall lack of intensity with this team.

It might end up being argued, 10 years from now, that TT's poorest decision, was retaining a coach with his same collected and laidback demeanor. Call me old school but guys like Bill Cowher get their teams to personify them...

I, for one, do not think MM is the answer. Even if I'm the only one on record...

Ultimately you might be right, but I would not advocate replacing him now. He inherited a 4-12 team and went 8-8 in year one, 13-3 in year two. He seemingly did a lot of things right in those years. I am more than willing to let MM try to fix what went wrong in 2008. I don't think it is productive to fire a head coach because of one bad season.

[mission]

That's a fair reply and the reason I'm not calling for his head... but deep down I have a gut feeling about it. I screamed about Sherman's lack of insensity and Ive been seeing the same things recently with MM.

When I played ball, our coach just had a way of scaring the shit out of us.. all the time. If I walked by him outside of practice or whatever, I would get nervous even saying "hey coach".. and we won. He just looks too soft and your analysis backs that up... don't make me go on a leadership tangent here

[Patler]

That's a fair reply and the reason I'm not calling for his head... but deep down I have a gut feeling about it. I screamed about Sherman's lack of insensity and Ive been seeing the same things recently with MM.

I have to admit. I had Sherman-esque feelings at the ends of several games. Appearances of playing not to lose rather than playing to win. Trying to steal a victory rather than grabbing the game by the throat to win it.

[Patler]

Some good signs!:

Mike McCarthy isn’t scrapping his zone-blocking run scheme, but he said Wednesday his offense is evolving away from the pure Alex Gibbs-designed run game he brought in as Packers coach in 2006......

“We’re doing more variations of (running schemes) than we did Year 1,” McCarthy said at his season-ending press conference. “And we’ll evaluate that, and we’ll look to continue to try to improve that and we’ll tailor it to our players, because at the end of the day, it’s really about the players."....

"We’ll spend probably the next five to six weeks, up until the (NFL scouting) combine, developing our scheme, and then we’ll have it ready in March for when the players come back (for the offseason workout program).”

[packrulz]

I agree with you for the most part that the Packers are too "soft", I think M3 needs to crack the whip more and I was complaining last year that they don't practice outdoors at least once a week in Dec-Jan, to get them acclimated to the cold, blocking/running on a frozen field, & throwing/catching a frozen football. But they also lost those 7 games because M3 would get conservative and call 3 straight running plays after passing the ball the entire length of the field, blocked field goals, and the defense couldn't rush the passer at all.

[SkinBasket]

I actually tend in the opposite direction on this. I think it says a lot about McCarthy that he was able to coach a team under a new QB with various challenging injuries (OL, DL, Barnett, and finding a safety who could make it through an entire game, let alone a season) and Grant's holdout, into position to win those 13/16 games. It was usually pretty specific, though always different, failures in each of those games that led to defeat, which to me points to position coaching and failures at the player level - which isn't always indicative of coaching, but more the result of injuries and simply not having a better, or smarter, player to put on the field.

[Pugger]

I don't think not practicing outdoors in December is an issue. If memory serves I don't recall Holmgren doing it either.

I'm sure we all thought there would be bumps and bruises this season with a new QB but the decline in the defense was even more puzzling. Our LBs struggled but the poor play of our starting DTs was amazing. And losing Jenkins and KGB didn't help. Having a subpar D line reverberated throughout the rest of the defense with the scheme used. I truly hope MM finds a new DC with a different philosophy for next year. Most decent defenses are aggressive and ours is not, especially up front. That change could be just the tonic we need.

[privatepacker]

Two teams that much was expected and little was returned....the Packers and Cowboys. Both teams had the same issues. Lack of focus and leadership. I thought it was because of experience but definitly not in Dallas's case. So how to fix it takes will by the coaches over the players. Are the Packer coaches strong enough to impose their will to the players or are they tuned out? Guess we will find out what MM thinks if he ends up keeping all of his staff. My thoughts are that Moss will be Def. coord. if he doesn't get job in S. Louis. Special teams right now is toss up on a change coming. Either way, looking forward to the draft.

[cpk1994]

I don't think not practicing outdoors in December is an issue. If memory serves I don't recall Holmgren doing it either.

Holmgren didn't. Remember the NFC title game against Carolina. They didn't practice outdoors before that game and they didn't have a problem with it. Using the "they didn't practice outdoors" as a reason for bad play is just looking for an exucse for it.

[pbmax]

Some good signs!:

Mike McCarthy isn’t scrapping his zone-blocking run scheme, but he said Wednesday his offense is evolving away from the pure Alex Gibbs-designed run game he brought in as Packers coach in 2006......

“We’re doing more variations of (running schemes) than we did Year 1,” McCarthy said at his season-ending press conference. “And we’ll evaluate that, and we’ll look to continue to try to improve that and we’ll tailor it to our players, because at the end of the day, it’s really about the players."....

"We’ll spend probably the next five to six weeks, up until the (NFL scouting) combine, developing our scheme, and then we’ll have it ready in March for when the players come back (for the offseason workout program).”

He has been doing that since his second year, remember we started to see Power O and Gap stuff when the zones weren't working? And he got into a bit of a tiff with McGinn this preseason when Bob started to question "the Zone Blocking System" approach to run plays and personnel. M3 mentioned then that they have incorporated other plays and that Sitton, Barbre and Spitz at Center were examples of them not being in love with all things undersized.

I agree with your criticisms of the coaches approach, but they are the largely the same as his approach last year, when we were on the winning side of most of the 13 games that were close in the fourth. The coach has a hand in this debacle and I think he largely underestimated how much his defense could be controlled along the line of scrimmage late in a game. With a defense like that, he should have pushed for the alternative schemes to bring pressure and resist the temptation on offense to settle for FGs late. A Figgie late is still a good thing (having the lead is never bad) but with a porous defense, the FG must be taken with much less time on the clock that he allowed. He needed more first downs at the end of the drives.

But what marked the failure this year was losing the battle along the line of scrimmage. Part of that is coaches waiting too long to realize we were outmanned after injuries began to take their toll and the other part is personnel. You cannot dominate a team with pass defense late unless you have a pass rush. You must control the LOS and we could not. It became a lost cause after Jenkins got hurt, but we had little pass rush on third down before he got hurt as well. Safety injuries hurt the pass D late as Woodson was OK at safety, but his move weakened the whole unit.

On offense, when the D was still average, the line did not come together until mid-season again. Clifton got off to a horrible start and Tauscher struggled in pas pro. I thought this would be the year that competition pushed these guys into truly a good unit, but it took too much time and they still had too many breakdowns and injuries.

Still, Spitz at Center and Colledge overall showed improvement. I think Colledge can do it and do it very well. Consistency will come with time. And I know we have said that since after his first year. The bugaboo is Tackle, where if either guy cannot go at a high level next year, that will pull Colledge away from Guard and we get less experience. But I am hopeful Sitton takes RG and can move Sptiz to center. That may be a luxury if Colledge needs to go to tackle, but then we need Barbre or Breno to deliver. Its far from settled here which is unsatisfactory, but unlike the D line, the talent is on hand for a full offseason.

[mr_blonde]

Which is why I sit here in complete amazement that no one is at least somewhat questioning whether MM should return. All this talk about other coaches, or Sanders, or whatever and no one sees an overall lack of intensity with this team.

It might end up being argued, 10 years from now, that TT's poorest decision, was retaining a coach with his same collected and laidback demeanor. Call me old school but guys like Bill Cowher get their teams to personify them...

I, for one, do not think MM is the answer. Even if I'm the only one on record...

I second your opinion. I'm just not sold on McCarthy but he isn't going to be fired. Not only has this team lacked intensity; they are soft, especially on defense and special teams. Changes are most definitely in order. If McCarthy fails to fire Sanders and Stock, one will be able to look at this upcoming offseason as when M3 dug his own grave .... Ted Thompson's as well.

After this past seasons debacle, Thompson and McCarthy should view and approach this offseason and next season with a sense of urgency ... Remember Ted's "Five Year Plan" for getting a team to the Super Bowl? Guess what, next year is Year 5 for Ted ...

[Bretsky]

I still have a bias toward supporting McCarthy, but IMO he'll be tested in the coming week. He's made several apologist references to Bob Sanders and clearly likes the guy. Should be interesting.

[Fosco33]

Which is why I sit here in complete amazement that no one is at least somewhat questioning whether MM should return. All this talk about other coaches, or Sanders, or whatever and no one sees an overall lack of intensity with this team.

It might end up being argued, 10 years from now, that TT's poorest decision, was retaining a coach with his same collected and laidback demeanor. Call me old school but guys like Bill Cowher get their teams to personify them...

I, for one, do not think MM is the answer. Even if I'm the only one on record...

Ultimately you might be right, but I would not advocate replacing him now. He inherited a 4-12 team and went 8-8 in year one, 13-3 in year two. He seemingly did a lot of things right in those years. I am more than willing to let MM try to fix what went wrong in 2008. I don't think it is productive to fire a head coach because of one bad season.

27-21 in three years averages out at 9-7... meaning he hasn't shown much overall improvement in 3 seasons. With the last two years (very lucky/unlucky), we've seen about .500 ball from this team for 3 years.

In '99, Ray Rhodes got canned after one year of 8-8. And Rhodes lost 5 games by 4 points or less... so you could argue he could've gotten it done with more time.

I wouldn't really care if M3 was let go if there's a more capable leader. If he stays, it better be a damn good year or we're setting precident for a mediocre team for years to come.