Scapegoating and Rearranging Chairs

McCarthy Making It Clear As Mother's Milk or Did He

The Packers are run by notable recluse Ted Thompson, so the off-season has a different meaning for Packer Backers than it has for the other 31 fan bases. You have to make up your own stories most of the time because personnel moves are few and far between, so when actual news is made out of the black hole that is the Packers front office you need to jump on it.

One of the things that has happened besides Aaron Rodgers and T.J. Lang having minor surgery and Randall Cobb admitting he had a punctured lung for some mysterious reason or malfeasance by the NFL was the so-called restructuring of the coaching staff.

I already talked about phase 1 when tight ends coach Jerry Fontenot and running back coach Sam Gash were fired and replaced with former Cleveland Browns tight ends coach Brian Angelicho and former Rams running back coach Ben Sirmans.

Here's what Head Chef and Bottle Washer Mike McCarthy had to say to the question of Sirmans and Angelichio’s track record, "The performance of your position coaches is obviously more than just the actual statistics of how their players perform. There’s insight from relationships you have around the league throughout all the different interactions that you have. There’s a lot of conversation that goes on in these particular cases, particularly in the timeline that we moved them. It was excessive there for a number of days because we’ve never really moved that fast in prior years. It was important to do that to have the opportunity to interview Brian and Ben."

Did he answer the question? I think not. But beyond that what the hell did he say? He's beginning to sound more like a politician every day with a lot of words not answering a question and ultimately saying nothing.

I still find the firing of Fontenot puzzling in light of the other coaching changes because I thought the tight ends were just fine. Richie Rodgers not only finished tied with James Jones for the lead in TD catches with 8 and second in receiving only three catches shy of Jermichael Finley's season record of 61, but also caught the first miracle Hail Mary. Andrew Quarless was hurt all season and was useless, but Justin Perillo didn't do a bad job and finished with a TD catch.

So the firing of Fontenot didn't make any sense to me. Maybe we'll find out he didn't get along well with others or hit on McCarthy's or Brett Favre's daughters. Whatever it was he was one of the scapegoats for the offense that "took a step back".

McCarthy wouldn't give any reason for the firings, "I’m not going to go back and get into the details of evaluation and how those decisions were made".

The firing of Gash I totally agreed with. This was Gash's second year with the Packers' running backs and for some reason he was fine last year, but was clueless this year when Eddie Lacy was having his problems. The hiring of Sirmans has to be an upgrade.

I was hoping, but not betting the farm that other firings were coming, but that was it. Fontenot and Gash were the problems according to the McCarthy. So for another year I have to put up with Dom Capers as defensive coordinator. The reality of the situation is that as long as McCarthy is head coach Dom Capers will be defensive coordinator, so week in and week out I will be disappointed.

Ejiro Evero

A new coach was added when Ejiro Evero was hired as defensive quality control coach. He spent 3 years as defensive quality control coach with the Tampa Bay Bucs and the past 5 years has been with the San Francisco 49ers where he was a quality control coach then an offensive coach and the last two years as a defensive coach. SMALL WHOOP. NOT.



Is Former PIttsburgh QB Luke Getsy Wide Receivers or Quarterbacks Coach

Finally the deck chairs on the Titanic were rearranged and two coaches got new assignments. More disappointment. Offensive quality coach Luke Getsy has been promoted to wide receiver coach after the experiment of having quarterback coach Alex Van Pelt also be wide receivers coach after Edgar Bennett was promoted to offensive coordinator - one more time, did anyone know Edgar was offensive coordinator? He should have been fired, but NO. More disappointment.

David Raih

Coaching administrator David Raih was promoted to assistant offensive line coach replacing Mike Solari, who left to join former Packer assistant coach Ben McAdoo's staff at the New York Giants. I think part of the problem this season was the play of the offensive line, so I would have wished the Packers had gone outside the team and replaced James Campen as offensive line coach. So BIG WHOOP and another disappointment.

Here's McCarthy's take on the promotions, "Well, Luke Getsy and David Raih, we interviewed both young men two years ago. There’s definitely a focus on the quarterback position. To me, you can’t have enough line coaches in your building, you can’t have enough quarterback coaches in your building. {Did he just say Getsy is going to be a quarterback coach even though he was hired as a wide receivers coach? I thought the reason he was promoted was not to have one man in charge of two positions. I'm so confused.} It’s just a philosophy of mine as far as building an offensive staff. And definitely, let’s not kid ourselves with Aaron Rodgers. If you’re tied to Aaron Rodgers, your opportunities to move on to new opportunities will be in front of you. That was really the long-term plan, vision and so forth. When we interviewed both of those guys, David had a great interview and Luke was coming in the next day and I just remember leaving Lambeau being so impressed with David and then to come in the next day and I felt David knocked it out of the park, just using the words of our … because we had the whole staff involved. It was an extensive interview where both Luke and David visited with every coach for half an hour to 45 minutes and we had it all structured with different components – video, drawings, scheme evaluations, there was a video breakdown, put them on the board. It was an extensive interview for both guys. David, like I said, knocked it out of the park. Coming in the next day, Luke had a tremendous interview and, frankly, when we sat around as a staff and went through both guys, everybody just felt Luke hit it a little further. With that, two years later, now we have two young men that have earned this opportunity and I’m excited for them. They bring a lot of energy. They’ve gained the respect of the players and now they’ll have the opportunity to coach a position and get our players to respond."

I don't know if you anyone noticed, but with Van Pelt as both quarterbacks and wide receiver coach both positions "took a step back" with Rodgers having his worst season as a starter and the wide receivers not able to compensate for the loss of Jordy Nelson first, and couldn't get open, second. I thought he should have been fired, too, but the tight ends coach gets fired. GO FIGURE.

Here's how McCarthy described the situation, "I think we had a plan last year. {Wait a minute. He thinks. Was he that detached from the offense last year he didn't know?}. It wasn’t executed obviously to the level we look to achieve. The quarterbacks, wide receivers, tight ends and o-line, running backs, the interactions between position groups has been a staple of how we operate the last four or five years. I think more has been made of it frankly as an excuse. With that, the excuses are over. We’ve changed and adjusted frankly the job responsibilities back more to what we’ve done in the past. My outlook is hopefully it’ll be a much better process."

The Sheriff is Back

Evidently McCarthy took the year off last season, but now the Sheriff (sorry Peyton) is Back and is large and in-charge. However, I find these coaching changes inconsequential and except for going back to having a quarterback and wide receiver coach nothing much has changed. Another BIG WHOOP - NOT.