Fuel to the fire.

[pbmax]

Hear! Hear!

What about the Time Out Stubby called after Jacksonville's 1st down play with 3:00 minutes to go in the 1st half? What was that? Overconfidence? Stubby being aggressive?

I don't mind the idea. I just don't get doing it (when its not the end of game) on first down.

[Maxie the Taxi]

I don't mind the idea. I just don't get doing it (when its not the end of game) on first down.

Well, it stopped the clock for Bortles and it made scoring against the clock at the end of the half that much more difficult for Arod. I had never seen that before.

Edit: I think that was a clear case of being overconfident in the defense.

[yetisnowman]

It's probably not true, but the last time I remember the packers having 3 time outs at the end of the game was the NFCCG in Seattle. I remember they got to Seattle's 30 with all 3 timeouts and 30 seconds left. Alas....
One of my main issues with MM, is the scatterbrained look to our no huddle. For such an experienced coach and qb combo, why are there so many hiccups and discombobulation? Normally I'm less critical of his play calling than most, but last year I thought was his worst...and last weekend was very weak in a few critical spots.

[vince]

Making an argument that the coach with the second most wins and third highest winning percentage over the last decade doesn't know how to win has no basis in the fist place.

[hoosier]

How terrible is the Packer D to allow a 70 yard drive to win at the end.

The odds don't just justify it. They endorse it.

This isn't about making a splash, its about putting your team in the best possible position to win. Scoring a TD is a great choice. Defending from the 2 is a good backup position.

Not sure what point you're making in the second line. The goal line situation happened with about 12:00 left in the fourth, right? Go for the TD on fourth down and make it, you're kicking off up 31-20. Fail and you're up 24-20 and Jax has the ball on their own 2 (or own 5 if Lacy tries to run wide again....). Of course the decision depends a lot on the game situation, on what's been happening up until that point, and on how confident you feel in your short yardage offense and your defense. But generally speaking, kicking the field goal in that situation is a reasonable decision, not overly conservative.

[Maxie the Taxi]

Making an argument that the coach with the second most wins and third highest winning percentage over the last decade doesn't know how to win has no basis in the fist place.

There are 7 current Head Coaches in the NFL with a higher winning percentage in the Playoffs than McCarthy (8-7, .533). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...playoff_record

By my count McCarthy ranks #48 on the list of all-time playoff coaches winning percentage. Coaches with a similar number of playoff games coached that have a better winning percentage than McCarthy are:

Vince Lombardi (9-1, .900)

Tom Flores (8-3, .727)

Bill Walsh (10-4, .714)

Joe Gibbs (17-7, .708)

Bill Belichick (23-10, .697)

Jimmy Johnson (19-4, .692)

Chuck Noll (16-8, .667)

George Siefert (10-5, .667)

John Harbaugh (10-5, .667)

Tom Coughlin (12-7, .632)

Pete Carroll (9-6, .600)

Sean Payton (6-4, .600)

Bill Parcells (11-8, .579)

Marv Levy (11-8, .579)

Bill Cowher (12-9, .571)

Mike Shanahan (8-6, .571)

John Madden (9-7, .563)

Tom Landry (20-16, .556)

Dan Reeves (11-9, .550)

Dick Vermeil (6-5, .545)

Mike Tomlin (6-5, .545)

Mike Holmgren (13-11, .542)

Mike McCarthy (8-7, .533)


McCarthy may have a better regular season won/loss percentage than most of these guys, but his playoff record is way worse.

Amazingly, McCarthy and Belichick have virtually the same regular season won/loss percentage*, but their playoff won-loss percentage is miles apart.

As I've posted before...

There is so much to like about McCarthy. He's stubborn and anal about a lot of the right things. He's organized. He's prepared. He is loyal to his players and gets the most out of them. He's a steady hand on the tiller. He's logical and deliberate. All of these traits lead to success over the long haul, but they sometimes make it difficult for Stubby to think out of the box when required.

I'm not criticizing McCarthy for his regular season consistency. As I think pb said, his conservative style lends itself to winning in the regular season. I'm criticizing his tactics and strategy in specific scenarios when all the chips are on the line.

Neither am I trying to be argumentative. I'm just commenting on what I see. If I'm seeing wrong, then mea culpa.

McCarthy is an offensive coach. His offense didn't win the game Sunday. His defense did. I don't have statistics, but it seems to me McCarthy's style puts the onus on the defense to save the day more often than his offense takes pressure off the defense by padding a lead or playing aggressive offense, especially at the end of the game.

Edit: Added footnote * http://www.pro-football-reference.com/coaches/

[Carolina_Packer]

This guy is the culture beat writer for that site!?

Regardless, I agree, they should have gone for it. Not to mention run some kinda pass instead of 3 straight running plays.

Those three straight run plays looked unimaginative. Do you know if they had Ripkowski in on any of those three runs? Once you establish or show run in that sequence, how about play action and dump it to Cook or Cobb in the end zone?

When I read that article, all I could think of is NFC Championship game against Seattle, playing not to lose. And who could forget last year when we could have won the divisional game in AZ. I know it would have been very controversial and if he didn't make the two point conversion, he would have been roasted by some, but it certainly would have been his chance to salt the game away with control of the ball.

It's funny how aggressive he can be sometimes until he gets in the red area, especially goal to go.

[pbmax]

Making an argument that the coach with the second most wins and third highest winning percentage over the last decade doesn't know how to win has no basis in the fist place.

I am not saying he isn't a quality coach, I think he is. But he doesn't do well in close games when game management really comes into play. Its a trend that has been playing out for quite a long time now.

[pbmax]

Not sure what point you're making in the second line. The goal line situation happened with about 12:00 left in the fourth, right? Go for the TD on fourth down and make it, you're kicking off up 31-20. Fail and you're up 24-20 and Jax has the ball on their own 2 (or own 5 if Lacy tries to run wide again....). Of course the decision depends a lot on the game situation, on what's been happening up until that point, and on how confident you feel in your short yardage offense and your defense. But generally speaking, kicking the field goal in that situation is a reasonable decision, not overly conservative.

The second line was just emphasis. Being so close to the end zone is a huge leverage point. Settling for a FG with multiple drives left in the game is surrendering points.

You stand a good chance of scoring. You stand a good chance of stopping the next Jags drive if you don't score, in fact you have another excellent shot at a FG on your next drive if you back a team up to their goal line.

[3irty1]

I agree that his superior team/low variance approach isn't all that problematic in the regular season. But if it was truly an informed and considered approach* it would change versus superior opponents like he sees in the playoffs.

His play calling is fantastic. His game situation management is terrible. But terrible is baseline for the League. Belichick isn't the best because he is lucky.

I do agree that he is much much better when he realizes his team is at a disadvantage. Two of his best games were versus that frightening Viking defense with Williams and the other Star Caps defendant prior to their protracted legal education.

He does not adjust when the odds are close. He seems comfortable taking cues from research, but he obviously hasn't gotten into Win Probability or Expected Points. Hell the NYTimes fourth down bot could help. In tight games he follows the script and hoary coaching wisdom and is preyed upon by teams being more aggressive with their chances.


* rather than based on something more solid than "teams that runs the ball more than pass in the 4th quarter win the game 82% of the time". I sincerely believe that is the level of his understanding of numbers in the game. His comments about running with a lead late do not fill me with confidence.

Do you remember when McCarthy was dancing around about the terrible run game after Jeff Jagodinski left? One year he said he had to have a certain number of attempts to keep the defense honest. The next year he wanted the average up. The year after that he said it would be stupid to have a predetermined number of reps. There is no hint of a studied approach. He is just defending the approach on the field without rationale.

I think "defending the approach on the field without rationale" is exactly what press conferences are for. I don't see it even remotely as an indictment that his approach is anything less than informed or thoughtful. Why would his approach necessarily change in the playoffs? Most of the time I've heard "We're nobody's underdog" its been in January. The opponents might be better, but if he still heavily favors his Packers then the dynamic informing his decisions is the same. As for the research he has, I can't say for sure but I'd be surprised if the Packer analytics were heavily dependent on historical data in order to come up with models for win prob. or expected points. The issue with football analytics like that is that the game changes so fast you're virtually always breaking new ground and historical models are biased against just that. Informing decisions on that style of model in the NFL is a bit like me telling you "If you want to stay alive just do what you usually do" while you're in the middle of a gunfight. I'd guess McCarthy is thinking about specific modes of success and failure rather than percentages like we might as spectators.

There's also to consider that when we play an opponent that appears more aggressive than MM that this is causal. MM is rarely going for an upset whereas most of his opponents are. They should rightfully be more aggressive and sometimes they'll beat MM because of that aggression. Then we as fans wrongly assume that coach is an aggressive coach all the time.

My entire criticism is that he's incredulous to his teams disadvantage until its often too late. But as I said, there may be some benefit to the culture. The implicit premise to approaching each game as a favorite is that the Packers biggest rival is the Packers and they control their own destiny each and every week. To make a winning tradition I think you might need to believe that even if its not true.

[esoxx]

By my count McCarthy ranks #48 on the list of all-time playoff coaches winning percentage.

If only Stubby had a competent QB in those playoff games. He can only do so much.

[ThunderDan]

Well said.

It was like Yogi Berra was here at Packerrats.

[vince]

There are 7 current Head Coaches in the NFL with a higher winning percentage in the Playoffs than McCarthy (8-7, .533). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...playoff_record

By my count McCarthy ranks #48 on the list of all-time playoff coaches winning percentage. Coaches with a similar number of playoff games coached that have a better winning percentage than McCarthy are:

Vince Lombardi (9-1, .900)

Tom Flores (8-3, .727)

Bill Walsh (10-4, .714)

Joe Gibbs (17-7, .708)

Bill Belichick (23-10, .697)

Jimmy Johnson (19-4, .692)

Chuck Noll (16-8, .667)

George Siefert (10-5, .667)

John Harbaugh (10-5, .667)

Tom Coughlin (12-7, .632)

Pete Carroll (9-6, .600)

Sean Payton (6-4, .600)

Bill Parcells (11-8, .579)

Marv Levy (11-8, .579)

Bill Cowher (12-9, .571)

Mike Shanahan (8-6, .571)

John Madden (9-7, .563)

Tom Landry (20-16, .556)

Dan Reeves (11-9, .550)

Dick Vermeil (6-5, .545)

Mike Tomlin (6-5, .545)

Mike Holmgren (13-11, .542)

Mike McCarthy (8-7, .533)


McCarthy may have a better regular season won/loss percentage than most of these guys, but his playoff record is way worse.

Amazingly, McCarthy and Belichick have virtually the same regular season won/loss percentage*, but their playoff won-loss percentage is miles apart.

As I've posted before...



I'm not criticizing McCarthy for his regular season consistency. As I think pb said, his conservative style lends itself to winning in the regular season. I'm criticizing his tactics and strategy in specific scenarios when all the chips are on the line.

Neither am I trying to be argumentative. I'm just commenting on what I see. If I'm seeing wrong, then mea culpa.

McCarthy is an offensive coach. His offense didn't win the game Sunday. His defense did. I don't have statistics, but it seems to me McCarthy's style puts the onus on the defense to save the day more often than his offense takes pressure off the defense by padding a lead or playing aggressive offense, especially at the end of the game.

Edit: Added footnote * http://www.pro-football-reference.com/coaches/

So now we want to count only the games where they play the ever-changing de facto best teams in the league AFTER proving to be one of the top winners in the league. Very small sample size amid the highest possible standard for even the most tenured coaches.

Setting that aside, he has not lost more than he's lost and he has a not-lost World Championship to go with that winning record against the highest possible standards. And he's not done - maybe far from it.

I'm going to at least wait until he's unsuccessful before making arguments about why he's unsuccessful, manufacturing subsets of scenarios where he is, or even better yet, making up scenarios that could have been unsuccessful had they not in fact been successful. You guys can carry on til your heart's content.

He wins and he knows how to win more than not win - regular seasons, playoffs, or Super Bowls. Those are indisputable facts.

[ThunderDan]

Well, it stopped the clock for Bortles and it made scoring against the clock at the end of the half that much more difficult for Arod. I had never seen that before.

Edit: I think that was a clear case of being overconfident in the defense.

Of course it saved 40 seconds so ARod had more time with 1 less TO. Also, we scored a TD in the leftovers the Jags left us.

[Fritz]

Pretty soon we're going to need a "Fire Mike McCarthy" thread.

I blame Kurt Schottenheimer, personally. And Mike Stock.