McCarthy\'s Role In Brett\'s Performance

As much as I have praised Mike McCarthy this season, I would be remiss not to mention that Mike's game-plan heading into Thursday night was highly questionable, and certainly contributed to Brett's bad night at the helm of the Packer's offense.

While the ultimate responsibility for Brett's throws is on Brett (obviously) McCarthy's decision to emphasize deep throws early in the game, and to plan on hitting Dallas deep early and often was the last thing the Packers needed. They had won ten games by doing the exact opposite - methodically moving down the field and hitting deep once or twice later in the game. Telling Brett - "Let's go deep early" is just about the worst thing any coach could do - Sherman was guilty of it more than once, and up until this week, McCarthy had done a good job of not falling into that trap and of reigning in his Hall of Fame quarterback. Hindsight is 20-20, and McCarthy was no doubt trying to catch Dallas off guard. But really. At Dallas on (semi) national television is not the place. In fact, it's just about the worst time you could try to "unleash" Brett.

Again, there's more than one read on every play, and Brett is the one who pulls the trigger. But McCarthy needs to get back to the game-planing that won his team 10 games. The deep stuff will come. No need to force it early, ever.

 

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Comments (2)

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BratsNBeerGuy's picture

December 02, 2007 at 05:07 pm

Totally agree. Brett Favre shoulders (on his good one) part of the blame for pressing the ball, but it did seem like McCarthy came into the game looking to beat Dallas with the big play. Hopefully he learned some valuable lessons, along with the rest of the team. (Looking at you, Al Harris.)

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j4a1's picture

December 03, 2007 at 02:23 pm

I think MM's thinking on the matter was...we've got major injuries on defense. Woodson, Jolly, KGB, Rouse..Collins hadn't played in 3 weeks. I think both he and Favre thought that they were going to need lots of points and get in a shoot out to win. I also think Dallas came out and tried to stop the short, underneath game.

I think this was a miscalculation on two counts. First, I think that we could have still moved the ball, patiently, with the short game. Rodgers did a great job of that. And also, I think it sent the wrong message to the young guys on defense. It was like telling them, I know your going to fold...we'll let the offense win this for us.

Bad strategy all around.

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