#254 Packers Unscripted: Season of change

believe roughly thirty three minutes. Okay, that's uh. I've been here for all of McCarthy's coaching career and I can tell you that that is the longest season ending news conference he's ever had. It's a reflection, obviously, of all the change that's going on here at twelve sixty five Lombardi Avenue. UM, but an interesting, an interesting day in

the lambeau Field oud ofitur. It certainly is Mike. I think last year McCarthy's final news conference, now mindy, there was basically no coaching changes that happened after last season was about twenty three minutes, nineteen minutes of questions from what I gathered. UH, this year, he had a very short intro, A lot of it were questions. Some of the things that came out of that, Beginning with Dom

Caper's no longer the defensive coordinator. Scott McCurley and Mike Turkovac, the assistant linebackers coach in defensive line coach, respectively, both also have been parting ways at the organization. On the offensive side, Edgar Bennett situation still fluid, but the offensive

coordinator position is going to look different. Alex Van pel choosing to let his contract run out now a free agent so he won't be back as the quarterbacks coach, and then also Tim McGarrigle, who was the defensive quality

control coach, has also pursuing different opportunities. So for me, during my time on the beat, how this line's up, Mike the most changes other than you know, maybe the shuffling that they did in two thousand and fourteen, A lot of that was promotions, though it wasn't so much

guys being you know, parting ways with the team. So very interested to see how the situation plays out now, but definitely offensive defensive coordinator positions are going to look different in two yeah, and certainly the biggest coaching shakeup since uh the the after the Packers last non playoff season in two thousand and eight, when the entire defensive coaching staff really except for one or two individuals, was replaced.

And unlike that time nine years ago, I guess if I'm doing my math right, um, this time Mike McCarthy isn't talking so much about defensive scheme. He you know, he really wanted to switch from that four three to the three four when he brought in Dom Caper's in early two thousand nine. This time he's not talking about,

you know, scheme and numbers and this and that. It's about finding the right defensive coordinator that is is going to have the same vision for the type of defense that he wants to play, the style of defense he wants to play, the xs and ohs. The schematic part

of it is secondary in a sense. And he did mention three internal candidates for the job, associated head coach Winston Moss, safety's coach Darren Perry, cornerbacks coach Joe Witt Jr. But he will also interview some external candidates for for defensive coordinator. This is going to be a very interesting decision for Mike McCarthy. The first thing I want to

start off with their mike is the scheme situation? Because you and I get the question all the time, well, is it the right time to move back to a four three? Nick Perry was asked about it in the final locker room as well, people, and it isn't any I'm not trying to single anybody out. We need to stop focusing so much on that. And it's not just

in Green Bay, it's in the entire NFL. Base defenses are run about fifteen percent of the time right now, and even at that mike, if you watch the Packers very closely this past season, they had a three four base and they had a four three base variant where you had Clay Matthews or Kyler Facro playing off the line of scrimmage as basically a traditional four three inside middle linebacker. So that is different. What is ultimately when

you get to nickel and dime personnel. In most cases, if you're going even strength, you have four pass rushers going after the quarterback. Doesn't matter what your basic philosophy is, the one on one concept is your four maybe five. If you send a blitz, rushers need to beat those offensive linemen need to beat the running back in protection you need to get after the quarterback. And I think that's the one takeaway I really got from McCarthy looking

at the vision for two thousand eighteen. With the defense, it's finding the right guys to make everything fit defensively and to really get the production that they felt they really had that first month of the season before things started to get away from them a little bit. Yeah, I think so. You know, Mike McCarthy reference the season

opener against Seattle. Now, granted, Seattle ended up not being a playoff team, just like the Packers ended up not being a playoff team, but that performance in Week one at lambeau Field, that's that's the type of defense that

McCarthy envisions. He got it established at the start of but now it's a matter of having that the roster makeup, the way the players are developed, especially young players developed all of that to be able to carry it through for an entire season, to be able to continue to play that way. And uh, and that's that's really his goal and his vision for the upcoming season. Yeah, and it isn't as you said, it's not just the defense either offensively that there's some soul searching they need to do.

As well trying to to find a way to bounce back from this. Certainly they lost the kingpin, they lost the biggest piece to this equation for Aaron with Aaron Rodgers for the better part of ten games last season. Uh, that is going to be something that makes everything difficult.

But it's how do the other pieces independent of that come together, which I think is one of the reasons he said, when you're looking at the offensive coordinator spot in Green Bay, it's unique because he he mentioned he's going to continue to call plays here in this offense, so that coordinator spot is really the guy that's going to be facilitating those those positions coming together, the overall concepts of a defense, this scheme that has to fit too.

So I think when you look at these two sides of the ball, and certainly there's a lot of things to be figured out. We only have the more abstract vision at this point. But it will be interesting when that staff does come together, when they start kind of formulating that game plan for two thousand and eighteen, how all these pieces are gonna align with that vision of what McCarthy wants his team to be going forward. And he said he doesn't have a timeline necessarily for when

he's going to finalize his coaching staff. But I think we've seen in the past, you know, it takes it takes a few weeks to get all the pieces in place when you're making this many changes. But um, but he's going to He's going to take his time. Yeah. I wanted to ask you this much because I was covering prep sports back in two thousand and eight and

two thousand night. How long do you remember how long that was from when Bob Sanders and that staff was let go to when they brought in Don Caper's I want to say it was about a month because I know that they got it all done. You get the coaching staff definitely set before everybody goes to the combine when you start meeting with the prospects, the college prospects

and whatnot. So I would think, you know, either by the end of this month or shortly after the Super Bowl, all I would have to believe he'll have his coaching staff finalized for twenty Yeah, and and again, as you said, there's no timeline on it. But it's just it is interesting because this is these these weeks, these days, this is where these decisions need to come together and what we'll see what the Packers look like. Yeah, well, plenty

more to talk about from coach McCarthy. Season ending news conference back with more on Packer's Unscripted right after this, Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford in this chair, Wes Hodkowits and that one. And what's another topic that came up with Coach McCarthy in the media auditorium speaking with reporters the new GM higher, which we talked about a lot on previous shows this week, McCarthy said he's uh involved in the process to a certain extent that

we didn't go into into the details. The main gist of what he said, though, is acknowledging essentially that, um, he wants to have a similar type of partnership relationship, the same type of fit that that he felt with Ted Thompson over a very successful twelve year run. But but if that fit isn't there, he doesn't expect or you know, doesn't have the expectation that that new GM is going to necessarily keep him as the head coach,

you know. And and here's the thing. I thought it was such a mature statement from McCarty looking at this because it is you have to understand the realities of this world, and it's that different people are gonna have different philosophies, are gonna have different thoughts, and just to think that, well, you hire one guy, everything will be you know, unicorns and rainbows, it doesn't always work like that.

His his biggest statement, I thought going up there, whether it was talking about the coaching staff, whether I was talking about the GM, every aspect of the football team with the goal of being a championship surrounded by the idea of fit. So he's involved to a certain extent, he said with this, but ultimately it is Mark Murphy's search. The questions about it have to be directed towards Mark Murphy in terms of who ultimately is going to be

handling that role of general manager. But one of the reasons why him and Thompson worked so well is because they aligned in the idea of fit. Thompson was hired as GM, ends up a year later hiring McCarthy as his coach when I think a lot of other people in the NFL wouldn't have been glowing, you know about an offensive coordinator that just went through the struggles that he did. In San Francisco. Thompson saw the big picture, he saw what he was as a developer, and they

had this run of twelve seasons together. Now that you look towards the future, there's some really good in house candidates as far as this GM position is concerned. McCarthy didn't want to single out anyone specifically for obvious reasons, but there is there is value to that, and there's value to having that relationship and in understanding how all of that can come together when you have people that were raised in Thompson's personnel department in McCarthy obviously also

seeing his career as a coach really flourished under Thompson's watch. Yeah, and make no mistake about it, Mike McCarthy confirmed, as he said many times in the past, he feels he has the best job in the NFL. He absolutely loves coaching the Green Bay Packers. All the resources that are available to him as a head coach to develop a football team to go win football games. He loves it here.

He wants to stay here. He's just acknowledging the reality that you know, if if there isn't a if there isn't a viable partnership with whoever the new GM is, that that's not going to be what's best for the Green Bay Packers. And just as Ted Thompson stepping aside when he has now was a move that wasn't the best interests of the Packers going forward. Mike McCarthy's acknowledging that these types of moves, you know, they could happen

down the road. He's he's not necessarily counting on the fact that after twelve years as the head coach, that he's going to be the coach here for another Well, the Green Bay Packers really are an anomaly in the NFL right now. And the reason I say that is because you can look at lengthy coaching tenures in the NFL. There are some examples of it. There's lengthy general manager

tenures in the NFL too. But the two establishments that have a longer tenure right now than McCarthy is Bill Belichick in the New England Patriots, and Belichick basically runs their personnel department too in Marvin Lewis in the Cincinnati Bengals. In Marvin Lewis basically runs that entire organization as well with his coaches, So those everyone has a unique kind of viewpoint on how you go about building a franchise,

building a football team, and sustaining that success. I think the only other real comparable is New Orleans what they've done with Mickey Loomis and in Sean Payton that has stayed together over the years, but it is in some ways it's uncharted territory what the Packers are going into. So McCarthy understands the realities of this and how things

can play out. And again, it's gonna come down to seeing how what happens ultimately with Mark Murphy, what he decides to do for this organization, and then seeing from there how everything could fit together. Yeah, and Mike McCarthy also talked about some of the things on the field in that obviously didn't go as planned. So we'll get to that after the breakback with more and Packers Unscripted.

Right after this, Welcome back to Packers Unscripted. Mike Spofford here, West, Hodkuh, It's over there, West, Continuing our discussion of Mike McCarthy

season ending news conference. I want to start this segment with some comments we heard the other day from Packers safety ha Ha Clinton Dix in which he was expressing some frustration with things that were going on on the defense, particularly in regards to when the injury struck and you had to have young players filling in on defense and things weren't going well that Uh, the Packers didn't necessarily have really the options to replace those players to try

to do something better, to try to improve what was going on out there. The options were limited. In a lot of cases it was young players who not for lack of talent, but for lack of experience. Really, we're not getting the job done. But yet then the only other options are guys with even less experience. Um. Mike McCarthy addressed this a little bit too in terms of in terms of the makeup of the team. What do you make of of these comments that we're hearing, you know,

ha ha. I thought it made such a great point. This goes back to Tuesday's final locker room. It was the first question he was asked in regards to Don Caper's being let go. Really supported Capers during that he started off with probably a minute long response, UM, thanking of for his time, saying that this is where I got my start, this is where I really got to

get comfortable in an NFL defense. But one of the parallels he drew was his first season in two thousand fourteen, which was to for my money still probably aside from the Super Bowl team itself, the best team that the Packers have had probably under McCarthy. And I say that because of how well rounded they were on both sides of the ball. So that season they were incredibly healthy. But you look at the depth that they had and

that they had for those years after. You know, in that in that two thousand twelve to fourteen stretch, you had guys that stepped in. You look at the outside backers when you had Mike Neil and Nick Perry jumping in. Uh. You know, in developing when you had Eric Walden, Jared Bush, uh,

a guy like Chris Banjo, Mica Hyde. Players that were maybe not quote unquote starters because of the depth depth positions, but they knew the defense and they knew it well, and when they got the opportunity to go in there, they were able to really flourish. And McCarthy addressed this too, about this this sort of in the middle of young, inexperienced players and veterans the Packers these last two seasons have really struggled to find someone in the middle of that.

It's not an easy thing to solve because I think injuries have really taken the biggest bite out of that. I don't think it's anybody's really fault per se that all this has happened, but it does lead to natural challenges that I think in some ways took the Packers from where they were that first month of the season defensively and ended up making it what the season you know, ultimately was. Yeah, and I think what we've seen over the years, Mike McCarthy talks about it, it's it's a

it's the nature of the business in the NFL. You're gonna have your young players and you're gonna have your veteran players. But then as the season goes along, you see that gap close in terms of in terms of their ability, the young guys start to catch up. He felt that really last season in ten he was seeing the gap wasn't closing fast enough, and that's one of the reasons the Packers started four and six. Before you know, they picked it up and then obviously made that memorable

run to the NFC Championship Game. This year. The gap seemed to be even larger and was was closing even more slowly. And obviously you lose Aaron Rodgers and that has an impact on on you know a lot of things and a lot of these issues that that we're talking about. But the uh, you've got to You've you

have to do one of two things. You either have to have some more experienced players to be able to weather those injury storms when they happen, because they're going to happen, and they happen to everybody, or you have to be able to get the young players up to

speed that much faster. And in the post two thousand eleven cb A environment, you know, Mike, the first half of Mike McCarthy's coaching career, the off season program was longer, They could work with players more, you know everything about those first and second year players. You've got to do so much more with them, especially the second year guys, you know, after they had put in their rookie seasons.

That's not that's not how it's done anymore because there are so many more limitations on O t a s and offseason program dates and hours and and this and that, and I think we're seeing and Mike McCarthy says, it's really across the league. We're seeing the impact of that with young players having to be thrown into roles and playing too soon, playing over their heads, so to speak, and and teams are suffering for it. About this, Mike Packers drafted Kevin King in the first round last year,

the first pick, sorry, ye overall? Okay, So he's unavailable for basically the entire off season program due to the college rules that left him back on the West Coast because Washington wasn't out of school yet. He comes into Green Bay, has the shoulder injury, plays through that ends up starting whatever it was, seven eight games despite not having that full off season to go off of. I think in some ways that was a good illustration of this inexperience and injury and how that can affect you.

We'll talk more about this, but I just I think this is something that it's very interesting to see when you really get a chance to review what happened this past season, how much that really influenced, particularly on defense, how the Packers were able to play football. Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about that after the breakback with moren Packers unscripted. Right after this Ye, Welcome back

to Packers Unscripted Mike Spofford alongside West hodkowits West. Before we go, I want to continue what we were discussing in the previous segment about this gap between your veteran players and your younger players in terms of that on the field performance, because sixteen games is a long time. The idea is that that gap closes and then you get a team playing its best football down the stretch, you make the playoffs, and you try to make that

postseason run. That's the formula. That's that's how the Packers did it in two thousand and ten, That's how they almost did it in two thousand and fourteen. But without being uh, you know, armchair gms, or even you know, football coaches for that matter, whose responsibility is to coach these players and get them ready to play, how do you go about trying to close that gap so the Packers don't end up in these situations like we've seen

the last couple of seasons. We'll just be clear. You know, Mark Murphy started this week, you know, interviewing candidates for the GM job. My phone still hasn't rain yet, so nobody's nobody's checking in with me. But um, to me, it comes down to three different things, Mike. The first thing is player acquisition. Packers have a lot of draft picks this year. I think that's gonna be eleven or twelve once this thing is all said and done with

the compensatory picks. That's a starting point. You have free agency, both the free agents that you want to resign potentially and then guys you want to entertain outside. I mean, you look at you know what could potentially be out there. Those are all decisions that whoever sitting in a GM are ultimately gonna have to make to really set the course for how things are gonna go. And the third

thing is the returning players that the Packers have. There was a lot of departures last year just because of how the situation worked, how contracts worked out. That was a big off season for a lot of expiring contracts and it impacted the leadership in the McCarthy acknowledged that absolutely, and that two thirteen draft man it bared a lot of fruit for the Packers and it just so happened at the same time they had some good veterans that

were coming up at the same exact expiration. Yeah, So to me, I think you need to keep your fingers crossed. You have to, you have to hope for some luck on the injury front because I think that ultimately really took away when you look, especially at the secondary, what the Packers could do. But they got a lot of experience.

These young guys on this roster this year. They need to make sure that they're able to parlay those experiences into a solid off season program and go into training camp a lot better for what they went through this season. I think that's the biggest key, because that's where your experience is coming from. Yeah, and I wonder from a roster makeup standpoint, and I'll reiterate what you said. My phone is not ringing for the interview. Mike Mark Murphy

hasn't hasn't called me either. But you wonder when you talk about draft and develop, and Mike McCarthy said, that still needs to be the core of who the Packers are and what they do is draft and develop. But if you have too many young players, how much is the development uh stunted in a sense for lack of a better term, When you have too many of those young guys that you need to bring along. Does the

roster need to have more balance? So there isn't there isn't that large of a gap between your veteran players and your younger players. I think there are some issues here in terms of roster construction, roster makeup that Mike McCarthy would like to talk to the new general manager about and and see if they're on the same page

to get back to that fit question. And we could finish a whole episode talking about this, but I think it is important when you look at that game against the Lions offense and defense, the number of young players that were playing at due to attrition, due to different situations, it was almost insurmountable, I think in some ways for what they had to handle. And I think sometimes when you see the results being what they were, it was

a product of that. Yeah. Well, we'll be continuing these discussions for sure, but for now, that's a wrap on this edition of Packers Unscripted. Be sure to follow all of our continuing coverage of the team on Packers dot com. I'm on Twitter, he's at west Hod, I'm at Mike Spofford at Packers for the team account. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. We'll see you next time. H m hm