McCarthy in "big" games

[Patler]

I've never bought this argument. These guys are professionals, every game is a big game. From what I've seen in recent years the offense is hitting on most cylinders for big games. We had pretty gaudy production in both queens games and also against Arizona in the playoffs. IMO McCarthy is doing his part. At the professional level, the responsibility is at least a little bit on the players for their individual preparation.

It's more than just the offense. Its more than just points and yards. They gave away opportunities to win that game in all phases, just like the Vikings did against NO.

[Patler]

The problem in my opinion hasn't been confidence, but composure. They've made mental mistakes in these games that they don't normally make. Some of this goes on the coaching staff, but your veteran leaders have to set the tone as well.

Well, its a catch 22 as I see it. I agree, but the team largely has a lot of guys w/ not a lot of experience. When you constantly have the youngest or one of the youngest rosters year in and year out, you will have more mental mistakes in big games.

Plus some of the older guys aren't really "leaders" in the true sense of the word. On defense, is there a true leader personality? I see Mathews growing into it, but I don't look at anyone one guy out there and say he's for sure the leader of the D. Not Woodson. Not either Nick.

Offense you have Rodgers and Driver. solid there.

Special teams.... ???? nobody.

Monday, due to injuries, they had some rookies in there. But by and large the starting lineups have a lot of starting experience. As I mentioned in another thread, last year their roster was the youngest in the league, but their starters had the fifth highest game starting experience in the NFC. There is plenty enough experience on the team for that not to be an excuse, in my opinion. Besides, 4 of the rookies and 2 of the 2nd year guys weren't even active for the game.

[Packers4Glory]

The problem in my opinion hasn't been confidence, but composure. They've made mental mistakes in these games that they don't normally make. Some of this goes on the coaching staff, but your veteran leaders have to set the tone as well.

Well, its a catch 22 as I see it. I agree, but the team largely has a lot of guys w/ not a lot of experience. When you constantly have the youngest or one of the youngest rosters year in and year out, you will have more mental mistakes in big games.

Plus some of the older guys aren't really "leaders" in the true sense of the word. On defense, is there a true leader personality? I see Mathews growing into it, but I don't look at anyone one guy out there and say he's for sure the leader of the D. Not Woodson. Not either Nick.

Offense you have Rodgers and Driver. solid there.

Special teams.... ???? nobody.

Monday, due to injuries, they had some rookies in there. But by and large the starting lineups have a lot of starting experience. As I mentioned in another thread, last year their roster was the youngest in the league, but their starters had the fifth highest game starting experience in the NFC. There is plenty enough experience on the team for that not to be an excuse, in my opinion. Besides, 4 of the rookies and 2 of the 2nd year guys weren't even active for the game.

OK. That being said. Who is the unquestioned leader on defense?

And really offensively I might change my mind because there are quite a few dumb ass penalties and nobody from the coaches to the players on either side of the ball seem to hold anyone accountable.

[Joemailman]

This team was in pretty much must-win mode the entire second half of last season, so it would be pretty hard to say they can't win big games considering they went 7-1. If there is a trend, it's that they don't play well in games in which there is a lot of media attention leading up to the game. Whether they get too fired up, or they're just nervous, they do seem to lose some of their composure in those games.

[MichiganPackerFan]

This team was in pretty much must-win mode the entire second half of last season, so it would be pretty hard to say they can't win big games considering they went 7-1. If there is a trend, it's that they don't play well in games in which there is a lot of media attention leading up to the game. Whether they get too fired up, or they're just nervous, they do seem to lose some of their composure in those games.

That's a really good point.

[denverYooper]

The problem in my opinion hasn't been confidence, but composure. They've made mental mistakes in these games that they don't normally make. Some of this goes on the coaching staff, but your veteran leaders have to set the tone as well.

Well, its a catch 22 as I see it. I agree, but the team largely has a lot of guys w/ not a lot of experience. When you constantly have the youngest or one of the youngest rosters year in and year out, you will have more mental mistakes in big games.

Plus some of the older guys aren't really "leaders" in the true sense of the word. On defense, is there a true leader personality? I see Mathews growing into it, but I don't look at anyone one guy out there and say he's for sure the leader of the D. Not Woodson. Not either Nick.

Offense you have Rodgers and Driver. solid there.

Special teams.... ???? nobody.

I don't buy the inexperience argument any more. It seems to me that some of our vets are making the majority of key mistakes.

WRT to penalties, here's what our Packers produced:



There are 14 of 19 penalties on that list committed by guys with 5 or more years of experience. (Chillar, Clifton, Collins, Driver, Martin, Rodgers, Tauscher, Woodson). Hard to fault youth on most of those. Especially the hold on Tauscher that wound up costing a TD.

Only 2 penalties were called on rookies -- Zombo (Roughing) and Burnett (DPI) -- and both of those were 50/50, they were legit but are not always called. Zombo was about 4 inches from making a huge play there and that was not a mental mistake but rather an unfortunate adherence to the laws of physics on his part. Also I thought Burnett was tangled up with the receiver in coming back to an underthrown ball. Don't know what more/less he could have done because he had good coverage.

WRT special teams, that is often where you'll see younger guys on most teams. Quarless, a rookie, was identified by Cristl and Baranczyk in the GBPG as "jogging" on the Hester return while Martin was held and Chillar was blocked out of the play so I'll give you the inexperience argument there. Although if he truly was loafing it like they say he has a bigger issue than inexperience.

Masthay is a rookie too and he had one crapper of a punt, but 2 pretty good ones. You can argue that he should have kicked away from Hester, but boy he had a couple of boomers that drove the PR back on 2 of those punts and the coverage did not get the job done. The line drive was totally on him at a bad time and can also be chalked up to inexperience.

Even with some of the younger guys finding a roster spot on Teams, you still have some vets -- Hawk, Chillar, and Donald Lee. Martin, who many identify as a key special teamer, has 5 years, had one penalty that cost them a return. Bush also has 5 years and didn't get any penalties. Bishop, at 4 years experience cost us a good bit of field position with his offsides. It was a 5 yard infraction but the first kick was covered well and the real cost ended up being something like 20 yards of field position. So there you have 2 guys with 4+ years experience with penalties on special teams.

James Jones has 4 years now on the team and he has been victimized by the Bears punching the ball out in the past. Jeez, you would think he'd have vivid memories of that happening in the past. I love the guy's physicality at times but he gets lax on ball security.

I don't know what you do. You can't have a full team of savvy vets on Offense, Defense, and ST. I believe that most of the "mental mistakes" were committed by our core vets. Some of our younger guys, IMHO, played BETTER than the vets, with the exception of Quarless. And that is the truly frustrating part. We had key mistakes from core guys at bad times. Guys who should be playing lights out because they've been in enough big games by now are dropping the ball. Literally!

[Spaulding]

Already brought up but discipline in my eyes falls although somewhat on McCarthy for keeping players accountable, most of the mistakes were made by veterans and thus it falls on those players.

What I gripe most about was the wasted challenge, at no point did it appear the Bears player stepped out and thus a lost timeout which was crucial at the end. I understand the impact of the play but the reply was pretty clear.

The other thing I don't understand was why he didn't allow the Bears (specifically Forte on one of his runs) to score quickly and thus given Rodgers a chance to tie up the game.

Much better odds of that than hoping Gould misses a chip shot.

[Spaulding]

Sorry for the double post, looks like Leaper brought up the same points in an earlier thread.

[MichiganPackerFan]

... Zombo was about 4 inches from making a huge play there and that was not a mental mistake but rather an unfortunate adherence to the laws of physics on his part.

This is great!!!

[Smidgeon]

Already brought up but discipline in my eyes falls although somewhat on McCarthy for keeping players accountable, most of the mistakes were made by veterans and thus it falls on those players.

What I gripe most about was the wasted challenge, at no point did it appear the Bears player stepped out and thus a lost timeout which was crucial at the end. I understand the impact of the play but the reply was pretty clear.

The other thing I don't understand was why he didn't allow the Bears (specifically Forte on one of his runs) to score quickly and thus given Rodgers a chance to tie up the game.

Much better odds of that than hoping Gould misses a chip shot.

I've said this in another thread, but when I saw that replay, I thought Jennings had stepped out of bounds (I was primarily watching the ball to see if it had nudged the line and only caught the foot on the sideline at the last moment out of the side of my eye). It ended up being a Packers' foot, but I thought it could have been. It wasn't until the started reshowing it over and over during the challenge that it was obvious.

Yeah, the challenge ended up being "wasted" because the Packers' initial reaction (and mine) was wrong, but I can't blame him for taking that challenge.

[superfan]

What's his record on Sunday and Monday night?

McCarthy's Monday night results, apologies on the formatting:

Rk  	Tm  	 Year  	Date  	 	Opp  	W#  	G#  	Day  	Result
1	GNB 	2010  2010-09-27 	@ 	CHI 	3 	3 	Mon 	L 17-20
2	GNB 	2009  2009-12-07 	  	BAL 	13 	12 	Mon 	W 27-14
3	GNB 	2009  2009-10-05 	@ 	MIN 	4 	4 	Mon 	L 23-30
4	GNB 	2008  2008-12-22 	@ 	CHI 	16 	15 	Mon 	L 17-20
5	GNB 	2008  2008-11-24 	@ 	NOR 	12 	11 	Mon 	L 29-51
6	GNB 	2008  2008-09-08 	  	MIN 	1 	1 	Mon 	W 24-19
7	GNB 	2007  2007-10-29 	@ 	DEN 	8 	7 	Mon 	W 19-13
8	GNB 	2006  2006-11-27 	@ 	SEA 	12 	11 	Mon 	L 24-34
9	GNB 	2006  2006-10-02 	@ 	PHI 	4 	4 	Mon 	L 9-31

3-6 overall, and only 1-4 over his last 5. 2-0 at home, 1-6 on the road at some traditionally difficult places to win - Philly, Seattle, Denver, New Orleans, Chicago, Minnesota.

Too lazy to look up his Sunday night record.

[superfan]

Really nice post, Yooper.

Perhaps this is the problem:

There are 14 of 19 penalties on that list committed by guys with 5 or more years of experience.

As we can see from the last few seasons, these players are very experienced - at drawing flags. The younger players haven't yet established themselves as reliable penalty inducing machines.

[Smidgeon]

Really nice post, Yooper.

Perhaps this is the problem:

There are 14 of 19 penalties on that list committed by guys with 5 or more years of experience.

As we can see from the last few seasons, these players are very experienced - at drawing flags. The younger players haven't yet established themselves as reliable penalty inducing machines.

And luckily none of them have the penchant of Grabby McSmurf, aka Highway 28...

[Fritz]

The issue seems to be a lack of discipline. The flags everywhere are an indication of this. Are they doing or trying to do too much? Does McCarthy try to complicate game plans too much? Or ask people to do more?

I don't know. They played superbly defensively against Dallas and Baltimore last year. But the penalties - argh!

[pbmax]

One reason for the offensive penalties would be lack of performance or production. Clifton and Tauscher were not ready (or able) to perform at an adequate level Monday. Same with Colledge's holding call. They were beaten and I don't think Campen can be blamed for the tackle's problems. Unless he has failed to prepare the backups to take their place.

I keep reading that Clifton is looking healthier, but that has to be some kind of snow job. His knee isn't getting better practicing on it more.

However, McCarthy and Philbin did crack the whip prior to Tampa and demand more practice from the banged up O lineman and (despite Tampa) they each commented on the fact that they thought this helped them improve later in the season. M3 has been making the same noise about holding positions open for players this week, which is how Zombo got anointed starter.

But one sure way to get penalties is to get beaten like a drum play after play.