The old saying, "a fish rots from the head on down" certainly relates to the current state of affairs with the Green Bay Packers. For the first time since 2008 the Packers are under .500 at this stage of the season and besides all the happy talk from CEO Mark "The Laughing Cow" Murphy down to quarterback Aaron Rodgers the fortunes of the Packers over the last six games will not improve by just ignoring the situation and saying it will turn around.
Murphy had stayed in his Ivory Tower all season and has made no statements since August until last week when he stuck his head out of his ass and made these statements, "I do hear from a lot of fans. And I tell fans: Like them, I'm disappointed."
Really when has he sat down and said anything to the fans directly as he just said he has. I would like any ordinary Packer Backers who have talked to Murphy one-on-one to let me know and I will admit I am wrong, but I digress, "Certainly, the season hasn't gone the way we had all hoped, but there's a lot of football left to be played." Hold on there buckaroo, it seems "there's a lot of football left to be played" is the catch phrase of the season because Rodgers and few of the other players, Coach Mike McCarthy and General Manager Ted Thompson have used the same phrase. The watchword for surviving a crisis is to stay on message and the Packers braintrust and team leaders certainly are doing that.
Back to Murphy, "And the other thing I tell people is, you've got to look at Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy's track record." STOP RIGHT THERE. Living in the past doesn't solve today's problems.
Every front office and coaching staff gets set in their ways and without someone holding their feet to the fire (Murphy is a sycophant) they begin to believe that everyone is happy with how they are doing things.
It's obvious from past statements by General Manager Ted Thompson that he thinks he knows best and ignores any complaints the Packer Backers have as uninformed claptrap. The last few weeks both Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers have said the fans don't know what they are talking about. Listening to the fans is not a strong suit of the 2016 Packers.
From Thompson's level in the Packers organization the rash of injuries to starters has unveiled, what I've been talking about for two years, that the cheap ways of Thompson have left the Packers without reserves that have experience and talent. These are the players who are currently starting and not a single one of them is going to the Pro Bowl.
Murphy continued, "We've been through difficult stretches before. We've had consistent success, and it's hard to achieve that in the NFL, but I do sympathize with our fans. They want us to win, they want us to play better, and we've just got to work through a difficult patch. I'm optimistic and I'm hopeful. We've done it in the past and, hopefully, we can do it again."
Today's Packers are not your grandpa's Packers, or your dad's Packers or even your Packers from two years ago. This team is woefully young with 31 of the active roster with 3 years experience or less. Championship team may be built on young players in the long run, but a team this young does not win in the present. And as has been shone this season when the veterans are dumped when they get too expensive the young guys aren't of the same caliber.
Thompson seems to fallen into the mode of always building for a team three seasons away instead of building towards a championship now. We live in the world of the "Just Good Enough" Packers where making the playoffs is the goal and not winning championships.
To top it off the top draft picks that Thompson hangs his reputation on aren't that talented. In addition, the undrafted free agents he is praised for in football circles are even less talented. That has been proved this season in spades with the injuries to the running backs and defensive backs.
Murphy now swerves into an unrelated aspect of the Packers management, "The [public perception] of that is, the Packers are really harmed because they don't have an individual owner who can go in and fire somebody. Well, if you look across the league, when those individual owners do things like that, it usually doesn't turn out very well. The answer isn't just to fire people midseason, especially, [given that] we've had a run of success."
Here we go again Murphy lives in the past and can't see the burning forest for the trees. THIS Packers team is underperforming and is week at every position with the exception of quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who seems have righted his ship, but he is getting no help from his teammates, especially the defense.
The Packers season is now on the brink. If they lose Monday at Philadelphia they will fall to 4-7 and with 5 games left will have to hope for a collapse by the Lions to make the playoffs for the eighth straight season.
There is no longer any room for error. Rodgers had better be right when he said the Packers will win the last six games because the only way the Packers made the playoffs is to finish 10-6 as champions of the North.
And even if they do they only make up one game on the Lions and will need the Lions to lose another game to sneak in.
Murphy said he talks to the 360,000 shareholders on a regular basis, but evidently he only listens to the stupid (Tedders), the apologists (Ask Vic) and either the deluded or the liars (Mike McCarthy and Thompson).
My suggestion is this team needs a jolt and a big jolt. You can't fire McCarthy, but you can fire Defensive Coordinator Dom Capers today and elevate Winston Moss for the remainder of the season. Everyone says Moss is a DC in waiting.
If Moss does well then consider hiring him on a permanent basis, but if he doesn't then talk Kevin Greene out of retirement to give that defensive unit the mean personality the players have been talking about the defense needs for the past two years. Right now they play like a feeble old man sitting in his rocking chair on his front porch.
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