Last preseason, I compared Mike McCarthy to his opposite number in New Orleans, Sean Payton. Both men owed their hiring to a reputation for offensive innovation. Although relatively young and inexperienced, both enjoyed quick success and acclaim as NFL head coaches. Then reality bit.

The comparison holds. Both men are coming off disappointing 2008 seasons, in which a prolific offense did not compensate for glaring weaknesses on defense and special teams. Both coaches' playcalling came under scrutiny, though neither lost the confidence of his players. In the offseason, both McCarthy and Payton opted for radical change on defense, hiring a veteran 'safe pair of hands' to shake up the unit while drafting defensive players with their top picks. Both teams are expected to contend for a divisional title — and perhaps more — in 2009.

McCarthy, like Payton, is very hands-on. He calls the plays on offense, and acts to all intents and purposes as his own offensive coordinator. He was behind the decisions to switch AJ Hawk to middle linebacker, Charles Woodson to strong safety, and ultimately the entire defensive unit to a 3-4 base. Dogged persistence with — and now semi-abandonment of — zone blocking on the offensive line bears the stamp of the head coach. This is now his team. Is it improving? Is it well-coached? Is McCarthy the man to take it to the Superbowl?

Here are the main criteria by which I will be judging the Packers' head coach in 2009:

1) Using and abusing personnel. Last year McCarthy acted as though he had never heard of the depth chart. Desperate to keep his most trusted players on the field even when the playoffs were out of reach, McCarthy moved his starters from one position to another in search of a formula that worked. None did. Instead there was chaos: injury to the starting RT led the LG to move to RT, the RG to LG, and the backup RT to RG. The result was not pretty. A similar hyperactivity plagued the linebackers and the safety positions. However, at running back, where productivity had been meager for most of the year, McCarthy persevered with nicked-up, out-of-form Ryan Grant as if he were the only back on the roster. The overall impression was of a coach who was unprepared for injuries, unwilling to trust backups, and loath to adapt his gameplan to changes in personnel. This has to change in 2009, and it starts with the offensive line, where McCarthy must decide on five starters, stick with them, and when necessary replace them with the next name down on the depth chart. He has to get this right, and straight away, if the team is to have a chance at.....

2) Protecting Aaron Rodgers. Matt Flynn's encouraging start to the preseason notwithstanding, the key to Packer success in 2009 is keeping the starting quarterback upright. This will be no easy feat. Half of the offensive line will be new, and stalwart left tackle Chad Clifton is by no means guaranteed to stay healthy. Rodgers left the pocket on 19% of QB plays last season, second most in the league behind Ryan Fitzpatrick. And McCarthy played safe, calling max-protect 50% more often than in 2007, when Brett Favre was still under center. If the Packers' offense is to excel again, McCarthy and Joe Philbin must strike the right balance between caution and risk.

3) Playcalling. McCarthy's reputation for creativity is well-deserved, but last year a certain repetitiveness crept into his gamecalling. The offense would show lots of different looks — full-house sets, shotgun spreads, all kinds of manic motion — yet there was rarely any attempt to disguise a play: when Korey Hall trudged onto the field, there was a run coming; when four receivers converged on the middle with Brandon Jackson in the backfield, you could put a call through to Vegas and bet your life savings on a screen pass. In fact, McCarthy was counting on the Packers gaining yards through superior personnel rather than scheming; and in this he was mostly justified. Even so, there were times where he just seemed to have run out of ideas. Should the offense get hit with even an average number of injuries this year, the personnel advantage will be lost, and he will have to win some games from the sidelines.

4) Running with an edge. The Packers' running game was about average in 2008. In some respects, it was pretty good: the backs consistently broke long-ish runs (they had 78 runs of 10+ yards, and a respectable nine of 20+ yards, with Rodgers adding another) and committed few fumbles. Despite a few high-profile failures, they were above average in power situations. And as receivers they improved from dire to mediocre. However, the running game struck fear into no-one, and as the season went on defenses felt increasingly confident in leaving just seven men in the box. Grant proved particularly hapless in the red zone, and has become the league's specialist at gaining two yards on second-and-ten. He was not helped by the playcalling, which added dollops of vanilla as soon as the Packers took a lead or approached the end zone. McCarthy has made noises about moving towards a more power-blocking scheme to supplement the maligned zone-blocking experiment, but the linemen have neither ideal size for nor, Clifton aside, NFL experience of the new scheme. There have been a lot of offseason changes, and the new players, units and schemes will need to gel quickly.

5) Penalties. This is Old Faithful. Every year since McCarthy was appointed, the Packers have found a way to shoot themselves in the foot with a bunch of penalties. Last year, Tramon Williams maintained the secondary's reputation for untimely pass interference flags, while both lines did their best to jump offsides, hold, and line up incorrectly. There were fewer daft personal fouls and late hits than in previous years, but the Packers' preponderance for getting flagged is a sign of youthful exuberance unfiltered by coaching.

Huh??

Win a Super Bowl.

/thread

Last year, Woodson played safety when injuries piled up at that position. It did not work.

As to the thread.... IMO, it is a bit verbose and a bit exaggerated. McCarthy did not open his playbook, I agree. Some due to the new starters and the lack of a cohesive OL. I don't think that other players were better, so I don't have a problem with it. The Defense was carryover from the last coach. While I did not have a big issue with it, the defense obviously needed to be replaced for a while. Many posts were dedicated to the failings of the D... ie, communication breakdown...

McCarthy's to-do list for 2009:

One word: salads.

Really, this guy has put on like 75 pounds in the last 8 months, that's like 1,000-1,200 calories a day excess. I can only imagine what his blood pressure looks like. He's going to be dead in 5 years if he doesn't lose some of this.

Well, Mark beat me to it, because the first comment I intended in response to the thread title about Mac's imminent baby delivery was that he'd better drop it soon because he's really carrying a load out there. I'm sympathetic, however, since I've just been through a huge amount of stress myself and find myself loading in breads, pastas, and fats rather than those salads Mark suggests and that I should be eating. I'm sure Mac has been under immense stress for some time now.

I don't agree that Ammek's lead post was verbose at all - it was well organized and very clear reading. Whether it was exaggerated is what this discussion should be about. Honestly, I thought it was a superb lead post - without prejudice as to whether Ammek is right or wrong. Many of the longer lead posts I read around here read like press releases and frankly nearly put me to sleep, yet never are they criticized for verboseness, but rather complimented as great journalism (which might explain the state of beltway journalism). I give kudos to Ammek for a post that could and should lead to intelligent discussion, rather than the 'rah rah' style that it appears is the preferred style in these parts.

Not to mention that I think Ammek is pretty much on the mark with a number of his comments. Packer game time coaching has not generally been up to scratch in previous seasons, IMO. There has been a rigidity and lack of adjustment; a failure of creativity (at times - not always); a predictable tendency sometimes; and penalties have disabled this team for a while now (which hopefully has finally made some strides toward improvement, going by this preseason).

For all that, there is much to be optimistic about too. The pre-game (i.e., week long and season long) coaching would appear to be outstanding. The offense is coming along remarkably well - not only is the QB seemingly improving from what was already outstanding play and the WR corps among the best, but we've added a tight end threat that the team hasn't seen for a long time and the running game, while maybe not scary to opponents, looks like it's been improving steadily across the past few seasons. Plus, the line seems to be making progress. Mostly, however, I think Mac's influence on the defensive side of the ball has been tremendous. The introduction of Capers and the rest of his staff is an offseason move that I think cannot be overstated in terms of value.

I doubt if he'll much change on game day style. But it's possible that the continual preparation over a few years will make that less and less of a factor in games. Furthermore, I never get the impression that his play calling is any the less inspired than 95% of the coaches in the NFL, so I can't condemn him to heavily - that sort of thing is a gift and talent in itself and not many have it. He seems to plan for games well, which is the important thing.

Lombardi used to tell his wife on Sundays that he felt like he'd already completed his work for the week and that there wasn't much to do on that day. Of course, Bart called all his own plays then and the game has changed. But still... we did ok in that era, didn't we?

Well, I think it is a bit verbose, but then I am quite verbose with my posts. I did not mean that ammek's thread was bad at all. I did not agree with some of his assessments, but I see where he is coming from and respect that.

Have you seen Rex Ryan? He is massive.

Thanks for the kind words, Terry.

I deliberately excluded any mention of defense (or special teams) in my original post for obvious reasons. McCarthy dealt with them big time in the offseason; as far as he's concerned, those are now on the "have done" list. If the radical moves he made do work out, he looks smart; if they don't, he's looking for a job. But barring a championship or a total meltdown, 2009 won't be enough to tell one way or the other.



Good call. I think it's a serious point, too. I'd like to see MM delegate more this year. I mean, the hiring of Capers is a start: McCarthy wasted, I think, more time than he would have liked trying to fix the D last year. Special teams look like they could be a headache again. But above all I'd like to see him hire a genuine, more-than-a-job-title offensive coordinator.

As I wrote in the OP, he's a very hands-on coach — his fingerprints were all over every aspect of the team in 2008. That's unsustainable. It's not physical, but see how the game ate away at Jon Gruden — another guy who was his own OC — or even Mike Sherman. The only people who can handle being in control of everything on an NFL team are Parcells (who works 3-4 years and then takes a sabbatical) and Belichick, who simply has no social skills to lose.

We could always hire Mark Mangino http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Mangino and we wouldn't miss a beat, with the continuation of "MM" initials and girth. (The guy actually has coached KU pretty well. My sister is an alumni and has season tickets. Boy have they progressed as a team over the years)

OK, halfway through the season, it's time to make a preliminary judgement of McCarthy's performance based on what I expected him to "fix" during the offseason.



The offensive line shenanigans don't need rehashing. I'm not sure how much of it has been McCarthy's fault, how much Thompson's, but the results have been pathetic and potentially disastrous for Rodgers' health and composure. The defense has been healthy through week 9, but the Aaron Rouse blunder casts a shadow over the one position (safety) where backups have been pressed into service. 2/10.



Abject failure. It took a full month of lobbying from his battered quarterback to get McCarthy to abandon the max-protect schemes that were muffling the Packers' passing game early. Rodgers' alarming tendency to hold onto the ball and his dismal pocket presence are getting worse, not better, as the season wears on. Who knows what Barbre and Clifton were practising in camp, but it sure as heck wasn't pass protection. 1/10.



The swarm of crapola opponents on the early schedule has made this a moot point. You could probably call the same pass on 20 consecutive downs and still beat the Browns. Through week six, McCarthy had continually abandoned the run too early even as his QB was getting killed, and shown a perverse reluctance to call the 'obvious' plays that make the Packer offense tick: slants, screens, hitches, bootlegs. Since then, the offense has regained a more conventional shape, although an over-reliance on the deep ball is sidelining Greg Jennings and possibly caused the three-pick Rodgers fiasco in Tampa. 4/10.



Run blocking has been, bizarrely, the strength of the Packer offense so far in 2009. Green Bay has been stuffed infrequently on run plays. The dead-in-the-water outside zone stretch, staple of the offense in 2008, is being phased out, as McCarthy has finally woken up to the fact that Ryan Grant takes longer to get to the tight end than any NFL linebacker except Dhani Jones. The rush offense is now more varied, more successful between the tackles, and more consistent. However it still lacks pizzazz — though Ahman Green provided a glimmer of big-play hope against Tampa — and is reverting to its (poor) 2007 form in short-yardage situations. In other words: still lacks edge. 5/10.



Penalties remain inexcusably frequent, with special teams adding themselves to the long list of repeat offenders. 2/10.

Overall:
The comparison with Sean Payton that I made in the original post now looks embarrassingly inapt. McCarthy is losing the confidence of his players as well as Packer fans. He appears to be overwhelmed by the (relatively banal) problems afflicting the 2009 Packers, which have become endemic and threaten to turn cancerous. He must now lead this team out of the darkness, as Mike Holmgren did down the stretch in 1995, or Mike Sherman after a 1-4 start in October 2004. He has to find a solution to the sack crisis, and compel his underlings to fix the leaky secondary, the feeble pass rush, the indiscipline, and the ludicrous coverage breakdowns on special teams. Nine wins could be enough for a playoff spot; any less than that, and McCarthy might get the opportunity to see this Buccaneer offense again in January — as its new coordinator. 3/10