There has been plenty of talk about the Green Bay Packers being stale, mediocre and so forth. That will happen when you start the season 4-4 and you’ve had the same head coach running things for 11 years.
That head coach — Mike McCarthy — says he’s still confident in this year’s team and there’s reason for him to be. We covered it earlier this week. While the Packers are indeed looking pretty mediocre at this point, we’ve all been here before.
The most obvious example was 2009, when the Packers had the same 4-4 record after eight games. They won seven of their last eight to finish 11-5.
As for the stale nature of McCarthy’s offense, that criticism seemed valid at the start of the season. McCarthy was trying to rely on the old standby — the no-huddle, vertical passing game, using the same three receivers and ignoring the run.
Out of necessity — that caused by injuries — McCarthy has had to change things up both in terms of how the offense is run and the players on the field. The team’s new quick-strike offense has had mixed results so far, but at least it isn’t totally obvious what the Packers are going run each week.
While there was some discord in the locker room following last week’s loss to Indianapolis, the Packers appear to be staying the course. And at least on the surface, it appears they remain confident and are pulling together, rather than tearing apart.
While there’s plenty we don’t like about McCarthy, his approach has certainly been steady.
“I never — and I’m very conscious of this because I’ve experienced this as an assistant coach — sit there and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do it just the way we did it last year because it worked,’” McCarthy said. “Or, ‘This is 2010 all over again.’ I don’t go that way. I think that’s a bad trap to possibly fall into because I think it comes into a category of false confidence. The confidence I stick to is what I see each and every day.
“This is a good football team. We’ve got a chance to do good things. The most important thing is Sunday, is to beat Tennessee. The way they work, just the way they prepare, what they put out there on the field each and every week, the relationships and just the way they go about it. I love the culture, I like their mindset and we ultimately know it’s about winning. I really stay in touch with today. Yesterday’s important. You can learn a lot. But to get to tomorrow and the way you’re going to get there, you’ve got to stay in tune with the pulse and the energy and the personality and what’s going to make us successful.”
Now, that’s all great, but the Packers have to start winning games. We’d suggest they have to start now. If they don’t, then they’re just another sub-.500 team just like the teams they’ll have lost to in consecutive weeks.