tlombard wrote:Swirls wrote:Hoot45 wrote:I am so glad McCarthy is finally gone. Long overdue.
Yup. He was great up until the past few years, and just seemed to really struggle with adapting to today's game. No creativity in plays being run, and outwitted with so many plays/alignments.
I haven't watched a ton of football the past couple of years but it also seems to me like the front office hasn't exactly done much to bolster the team around Rodgers either. That's a tragedy. You have one of the best QBs ever and can't put a halfway competent defense together for how many years? When Aaron Rodgers is healthy the team has a chance at a championship (well, not this year) but if he's hurt then the team is hot garbage and has been for years.
Rodgers should have more than one SB ring. Maybe the issue is McCarthy not knowing how to adapt and use the players he was given but at the same time, if your coach has proven for years that he can't adapt to the changing game and players on his roster then they should have either gotten rid of him years ago or stopped trying to force him to adapt and brought in players that fit the style of game he does actually know how to run.
Either way, Rodgers not having more rings is a travesty... and I absolutely HATE saying that since even when I watched the NFL religiously, I was the opposite of a Green Bay fan.
In their defense, they know the defense sucks and have used their top picks in the draft every year for the past several years (I think starting in 2014, since they used their 2013 pick on Eddie Lacy) on bolstering the secondary. Some of them didn't pan out (Damarious Randall and Quintin Rollins immediately come to mind), some were great (Ha Ha Clinton Dix, who just got traded a couple weeks ago at the deadline), and some just haven't stayed healthy enough to have much of an impact at all (Kevin King). Most of their focus has been at CB and S rather than LB and the defensive line. Overall, I'm liking what I'm seeing this year from Jaire Alexander, Bashaud Breeland, and Josh Jackson, though - I think all three of those guys were 2018 draft picks (or were earlier drafts but have just recently been elevated from the practice squad).
They haven't been able to lure high end defensive free agents to Green Bay in years. The exception was Julius Peppers in (I think) 2015, but he only stayed a year and then re-upped with the Panthers the following season. They were set to acquire Khalil Mack from Oakland, but the Bears swooped in at the last second and nabbed him instead. When guys like Davon House are your key offseason defensive acquisitions, you know there's a problem.
They also had an absolutely godawful Defensive Coordinator for years in Dom Capers, whom they finally fired last offseason.
Offense-wise, this is the first year in several years where the Packers have had a truly viable running game. Aaron Jones is still leading the league in YPC. However, a lot of the receiving corps (outside of Davante Adams) has been injured for multiple games, causing Rodgers to rely on a bunch of rookie wideouts who he isn't super familiar with yet. There have been a LOT of dropped passes that should have been caught. They'll get better, but not this year.
Jimmy Howard was signed to a multi-year deal to finally solve our TE problems, but he hasn't had the impact at TE that was predicted of him. Whether it's because McCarthy was not really utilizing him for the talents he possesses at the position, or because he never really had much of a rapport with Rodgers, or because of something completely different entirely, we don't know.
