New York Giants head coach Ben McAdoo returns to Lambeau Field on Sunday night, the place where his NFL coaching career took root.
There’s a certain feeling of pride that an organization feels when they nurture the growth of a player or coach who goes on to greener pastures.
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Such will be the case for Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy and quarterback Aaron Rodgers on Sunday. The pair will get a chance to see the professional growth of Ben McAdoo, the one-time Packers assistant coach from 2006 to 2013 who is now the New York Giants head coach.
It’ll be a homecoming of sorts, but also an opportunity for McAdoo to showcase how far he’s come and what he’s capable of when coaching a team of his own.
A Rising Star
The NFL is a bounty full of rewards just waiting to be had if a person is willing to put the time in to pay his dues. McCarthy was named the Packers head coach in 2006. While looking to fill out his staff, he remembered a young colleague with whom he had worked while serving as the offensive coordinator of the New Orleans Saints in 2004 and the San Francisco 49ers in 2005.
That assistant was McAdoo, who began his NFL coaching career with McCarthy as the Saints offensive quality control coordinator in 2004. He then joined him once again in San Francisco as the 49ers’ assistant offensive line and quality control coach.
McAdoo’s first assignment on McCarthy’s Green Bay staff was as tight ends coach, a role he held for six seasons until 2012.
How can I ask this team to be disciplined and poised, and be committed to it if I don’t have it myself?
After the 2011 season, Packers offensive coordinator Joe Philbin left Green Bay to become the head coach of the Miami Dolphins. That move set off a chain reaction that saw McCarthy promote quarterbacks coach Tom Clements, now the team’s associate head coach/offense, to offensive coordinator and McAdoo to quarterbacks coach.
“I figured that we look at Ben’s history and his path and he has done it all,” McCarthy said via conference call this week when asked why he turned to McAdoo to coach the quarterbacks, despite him having never held that role at any level in his young coaching career.
“He has learned it from the ground up, starting at quality control and he has a tremendous foundation there, he has a great history in this particular offense as far as the approach. He earned every opportunity that he was given and he more importantly did a great job with his opportunities.”
An Unlikely Pairing
When McAdoo was promoted to the Packers quarterbacks coach, Aaron Rodgers (his prized pupil) was coming off a year in which he led the NFL in passing with a 122.5 rating. That season, Rodgers also threw for 45 touchdowns with a 68.3 completion percentage en route to winning the Associated Press 2011 NFL MVP award with 48 out of 50 votes. Naturally, Rodgers was curious about how things would work out between him and a coach that had never specifically coached quarterbacks on any level.
It wasn’t long before Rodgers had his answers.
“The thing about Ben, how he earns your respect, is that he is a grinder,” Rodgers said via conference call with the Giants media this week.
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“He’s great with Xs and Os and he’s great with the ball. When you see somebody who cares about it as much as Ben does, you can’t help but have respect for the guy.”
Being close in age to Rodgers also helped turn the working relationship into an enjoyable experience.
“Ben was a lot of fun to work with. Occasionally, he would put on some Insanity in our (offseason) meeting room and we’d do like a 20-minute Insanity stretch or workout in there. Ben’s famous for his workouts,” Rodgers said.
“He’s also famous for his layering—you know, the short sleeves under long sleeves under short sleeves. I always appreciate that about him. Ben is always fun to rib because he’s such a ‘Type-A’ personality. Sometimes you had to remind him that you’re just kidding around. He’s quick with a quip right back at you and they can be cutting. So I always appreciated his sense of humor.”
He also appreciated McAdoo’s approach to coaching, which helped him earn his second Pro Bowl berth in 2012.
“I enjoyed working with him,” Rodgers said. “He was a stickler on the fundamentals and on the little things. I always appreciated that about Ben because he held me to a really high standard. That’s the quality of a very good football coach.”
The Son Returns All Grown Up
Come Sunday night, McAdoo is going to make his first appearance at Lambeau Field since leaving for New York. His goal will be to get this Giants team to snap out of a two-game losing streak in a primetime contest against his old boss and his one-time prized pupil.
Since becoming Giants head coach, McAdoo has kept his emotions close to the vest. He was no different Wednesday when asked if this week might be the exception to his ordinarily steel-like composure.
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“I have a job to do,” he said. “I’m consistent with the way I do my job.”
So he’s not even a tad sentimental about returning to the city he once called home?
“How can I ask this team to be disciplined and poised and be committed to it if I don’t have it myself?” he said.
Instead, McAdoo is focused on finding ways to give the Giants an advantage against a quarterback he coached in an offense that the current Giants system is loosely based on. It’s a tough task for McAdoo, who probably knows Rodgers as well as anyone outside of the Packers organization, made even tougher considering McAdoo said Rodgers has no exploitable weaknesses.
“Aaron does a good job each and every season—as well as Mike and the rest of the staff—at looking at the self-scout, evaluating your own team and things you can improve,” McAdoo said.
“A lot of things have changed; you see on whether it’s a TV copy or game tape. They do a nice job changing things up every year.”
But McAdoo still has some things he believes will look familiar.
“I think some of the foundations and the fundamentals are the same,” he said. “I think some of the core principles schematically. The reads may be the same in the pass game. The fundamentals in the run game may be very similar, but things evolve and change as you move on.”
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When he takes the field Sunday night, “moving on” will be exactly what McAdoo has done. While he’s always one to be respectful of the opponent, in typical McAdoo swagger, he and the rest of the team are focused on playing their style of football.
“It will be a great challenge for us Sunday night,” McAdoo said. “We look forward to it.”