Even the most rabid, foaming at the mouth, bloodthirsty Mike McCarthy hater could not have envisioned it coming to this.
But then again, no one could have envisioned the Green Bay Packers actually losing to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, either.
That happened, though – dear God did that happen. The Packers’ 38-28 road loss to the previously winless Bucs on Sunday puts them at 4-4 and, while they are still mathematically alive for a playoff spot, in real life they are anything but.
That puts McCarthy in a situation that seem unfathomable just 22 months prior: He now must spend the second half of the 2009 season coaching to keep his job.
Forget about the fact that firing him after the season would cost the Packers roughly $10 million dollars in lost money and focus on what we saw Sunday. By doing that, you will see that he very much is on the hottest of hot seats.
He once again refused – whether it’s stubbornness or stupidity, I’m still not sure – to go with a balanced offensive attack. The running game was working – Ryan Grant had 96 yards and a touchdown on 21 carries. He was running hard and taking on contact while still being elusive at the same time. The offensive line was opening holes. Tampa Bay has one of the league’s worst run defenses and the Packers would finish with 170 total rushing yards.
Did any of this matter to Old Blockhead? Absolutely not.
Green Bay was going to come out in that shotgun offense, dammit, and McCarthy just did not care if Aaron Rodgers was having one of the worst days of his professional career (completing less than 50 percent of his passes and throwing three interceptions). He did not care that the offensive line was allowing six sacks to a team that had just 11 in the previous seven games. He did not care that players like Greg Jennings and Donald Driver were struggling to get open, just like they have so many times this season.
Seriously, Mike, three and a half years into your coaching career and you still can’t balance out the attack? Is this some kind of joke?
He was the one who wanted to go with Dom Capers and the 3-4 defense. At this point in the experiment, I think it’s fair to say this scheme is a bust. That word might not cover it, on second thought. “Ishtar” was a bust. This thing is some sort of natural disaster.
How can you think anything less after watching the Packers defense once again fail to get big stops at crucial moments and fail to get to the rookie quarterback (Josh Freeman) making his first career start?
Rodgers and Green Bay’s once again awful special teams didn’t do them any favors, to be sure, but against a team like Tampa Bay, if your defense is any good, you shut them down all day. Period. Green Bay couldn’t and it’s because the scheme, and Capers, just aren’t working.
The defensive players clearly have no faith in Capers and that showed countless times Sunday. The unit – outside of maybe Charles Woodson, Nick Barnett and Tramon Williams – consistently played with little passion or emotion. At more than one point, they looked like 11 guys who were doing whatever they could to get things over with. If that meant allowing big third down conversions and two fourth quarter touchdowns, so be it.
Nice, Mike. Real nice.
That lack of enthusiasm wasn’t just limited to the defenders, though. It was a team-wide problem, both Sunday and at countless times throughout McCarthy’s tenure as head coach.
It was clear Green Bay was operating from the mindset that they were the Packers and the Bucs were the Bucs. Roll the ball out there and we’ll already have this thing wrapped up.
Nevermind the fact that Tampa Bay was just coming off its bye week, had two weeks to get ready for Green Bay, was playing at home and was likely to give its most inspired performance of the season.
The Packers took their shots early in an attempt to quickly put the Bucs away. That failed, and it took Green Bay’s already short-lived inspiration with it.
Don’t get me wrong – the players share a huge part of the blame for that, too. This is their job, after all, so you’d think they’d want to play well, especially since a lot of them have contracts that are up after the season. But don’t kid yourself and take McCarthy off the hook for that, either. Players need a coach that can fire them up, that can make them want to do well. It’s instilled in them from when they first strap on the pads. That doesn’t change, large bank accounts or not.
McCarthy has shown, again and again, to be terrible as a motivator of men. How on Earth can you see that changing now?
These things – oh, did I mention the Packers still can’t stop committing penalties at crucial moments? ‘Cause they did again Sunday – combined paint a picture of a man who isn’t a total moron, but might not be that bright, either.
And you can fire Capers, special teams coach Shawn Slocum, offensive line coach James Campen, the people working the concession stands at Lambeau or anyone else you’d like, Mike, but it doesn’t change the fact that you brought these guys in here. These were your calls and let’s be honest – you can’t chuck that many more bodies under the bus before it’s your time to get chucked.
Unless Green Bay taps into some sort of miracle pipeline for these last eight games, I think I know when that chucking time will arrive: The evening of January 3, shortly after the Packers’ team plane touches down from Glendale, Arizona.
–Chris Lempesis
Ol' Bag of Donuts 