The Green Bay Packers have given their coaching staff a facelift. Is this a good thing for Mike McCarthy, or is it the beginning of the end?
The Green Bay Packers made two massive coaching moves already this offseason. Joe Philbin is now the offensive coordinator, while Mike Pettine is the defensive coordinator. These are obviously moves to make life easier for Mike McCarthy, after all these are two fantastic coaches. Nevertheless, while they could save his job, they might also be putting it in even more jeopardy than ever.
That’s right, get your tin-foil caps on for this one, it’s conspiracy time. Okay, technically, this isn’t a conspiracy at all, I just think there are a few ways of thinking with these hires.
First off, there’s no more people to fallback on. No matter where you go, you’ll see other coaches take the heat for the head coach. After a poor season you’ll hear the cries of “well it was the offensive coordinator’s fault”. Then the offensive coordinator will be cut, and a new man will come in just to be the fall guy if everything goes south again.
This becomes harder to do when you have such established names at the position though. If they’ve made it work before, maybe it’s not their fault.
Second (and this is the big one), sometimes teams don’t want an outside hire. If a team is looking for a new head coach, there are only two options. They can hire from within or find someone from outside the organization.
If you have a legitimate superstar (like Aaron Rodgers) you want it to be someone he’s comfortable working with though. The only way you can be 100% on the fact that they’ll click is if they’ve already worked together.
With that in mind, I see things going one-of-two ways for McCarthy in 2018. First, the new coaching hires help him build a stronger team around Rodgers and they put together a legitimate Super Bowl threat. In this scenario, McCarthy keeps his job, and possibly makes his seat ice cold again.
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Door number two isn’t as fun for Mike McCarthy though. Despite having an elite quarterback, the Packers continue to have problems you would hope a great coach could fix. He’s run out of second chances, and the Packers let him go. Then they promote one of their two shiny new coordinators to the head coach position.
In the end, though, it’s a game of wait-and-see for the current head coach in Green Bay.