Greg Jenning Calls Out Mike McCarthy For Packers Underachieving
By Erik Lambert
Mike McCarthy has had a great run of success with the Green Bay Packers, but some are getting impatient with the veteran head coach.
This due in large part to one reason: not enough rings. Since taking over the team in 2006, McCarthy has won 114 games and made the playoffs in nine of 11 seasons. That’s a tremendous run of accomplishment. Of course he’s been aided by having two outstanding quarterbacks in Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers. Still much of the teams’ consistency can be tracing to his coaching.
At the same time, nine playoff trips has managed to produce only one Super Bowl championship. Given the quality quarterback talent he’s enjoyed, one would think he should have at least one more. After 2010 people talked about the Packers possibly being a dynasty. Nobody dreamed for a second they’d fail to even reach another Super Bowl.
So is McCarthy a problem? Former Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings thinks so, and made his cast on ESPN’s Undisputed.
"I'm just going to flat out say it: if we had a lead, our issue wasn't the defense, our issue was Mike McCarthy." — @GregJennings pic.twitter.com/cq5DzqFI5W
— UNDISPUTED (@undisputed) July 12, 2017
Good point or leftover bitterness
Of course Undisputed is a show built around saying inflammatory things to get a reaction, but does Jennings have a point? Does McCarthy get too conservative when the team has a lead? Well to an extent. For example, from 2011 to 2014 the Packer blew 10 leads in the 4th quarter. While that wasn’t the most of other NFL teams, they did have a bad habit of not being able to stop the bleeding. They ended up with a 3-6-1 record in those games.
Over that same span the Patriots, whom Jennings also references, blew 11 leads but were 5-6. They just seem to know how to close games out. The Packers have proven inconsistent at this, especially in the playoffs. Everybody remembers their epic collapse in the NFC championship against Seattle. It seems like each time they get into a high-stakes game, they don’t look like themselves.
At the same time it’s fair to wonder would Green Bay even be in those positions without McCarthy? It’s a question that can’t be easily ignored if a decision is indeed made on his future after 2017.