NFL: Packers fire McCarthy – which coach does Green Bay need?

The Green Bay Packers pulled the rip cord: Mike McCarthy is out, and the Packers parted company with their long-time head coach immediately after a surprising defeat to the Arizona Cardinals. This is one of the most historic franchises of the NFL with a Hall-of-Fame quarterback in Aaron Rodgers – but what kind of candidate do the Packers actually need? An assessment by SPOX-NFL editor Adrian Franke.

One thing is clear: all candidates for the Packers coaching position see this team in win-win mode. If you come to Green Bay now, you want to take advantage of the last years of Aaron Rodgers’ career and win a title – that must be your goal.

The way Rodgers’ talent has too often been wasted over the years in an outdated offensive scheme (combined with an often desolate defense) is the biggest accusation against McCarthy. In addition, there are some absurd coaching mistakes within a game such as the punt late in the final quarter of the Seahawks a few weeks ago, when Green Bay finally served Seattle the victory on a silver platter.

McCarthy’s scheme and the increasingly crumbling relationship with Rodgers are the main reasons the Packers have sacked a head coach during the season for the first time in their rich history – both things go hand in hand.

In times where offenses with motion and option (chiefs), a multitude of formations and extreme balance (saints) and incredibly closely linked run and pass play designs as well as an excellent play action game (rams) dominate defenses and give their quarterbacks open receivers and clear reads, especially emphasizing the respective strengths of their QBs, the Packers open has stagnated for too long.

And that in the truest sense of the word: Green Bays Offense often looked pre-snap static and old-fashioned compared to the top offenses of the league. Over the past few years, McCarthy has been holding on to his ISO concepts for far too long. In short: Receivers run routes for themselves in a vacuum against their opponents, without the routes building on each other and helping each other. McCarthy failed to develop the core of the offense.

That doesn’t mean McCarthy didn’t try new elements. In the pre-season – in which Rodgers only played seven games due to injury – the Packers played the third most Run Pass Options (143) behind the Eagles (181) and Chiefs (168) and clearly ahead of the fourth team, Carolina (104). Also more quarterback-friendly designs could be observed with Backup Brett Hundley.

Over the course of the season, McCarthy gradually switched to more tight formations and fewer ISO routes, but these were just new individual elements – not a complete, coordinated change of identity of the Offense, as has been seen in New England on a regular basis over the past ten years.

So the Packers lacked a base. Again and again there were games where Green Bay depended on Rodgers creating plays alone – and otherwise had no schematic answer to fall back on. The defeat against Arizona was just the latest example.

And yet, the biggest mistake would be to put Rodgers on a podium now and absolve him of all guilt. It’s been obvious for a while now that he’s having pressure problems. This year, unusual Accuracy problems also became apparent – several times even in critical moments. The free receivers the scheme provided him often ignored Rodgers or he missed them. He already stood at 47 Throwaways before Week 13, no other quarterback went over 27 (Goff) a week. Only four were over 20 at all.

Rodgers is regarded as one of the most intelligent quarterbacks of the NFL, on, but also off the court. On the one hand, every coaching candidate must be a coach who Rodgers also respects in sports – on the other hand, he must be able to offer Rodgers a scheme that makes him better and in which Green Bays Hall-of-Fame-Quarterback can emphasize his strengths and hide his weaknesses. It gets exciting at this point: Which coach is the right one? And what could this offense look like?

Rodgers continues to be one of the league’s best deep-passers with one of the NFL’s highest downfield-passing odds and one of the most dangerous quarterbacks outside the pocket. A vertical offense with a better designed and more intensively used play-action passing game, combined with option routes and plays that set Rodgers in motion in this way and at the same time better incorporate his Sandlot plays into the structure of the offense: Green Bay needs a scheme that can channel Rodgers’ drive for improvisation into positive structures.

It’s about constantly bringing Rodger’s immense potential to the field, and for that you have to build your strengths into the scheme and be able to work with Rodgers yourself. Could the Packers convince Bruce Arians not only to return from retirement for the Browns, as he said? His vertical scheme and his authority and manner as a coach would be a very good short-term solution. Or do the Packers dare to use a hot college name like Lincoln Riley to find “their McVay”?

It is indisputable that the situation between Rodgers and McCarthy made further cooperation impossible. You could see this in their gestures during the games, you could read it in comments between the lines. There were reports that both worked against each other in the games and that McCarthy had to be informed about changed moves partly by backup quarterbacks. Such tension and disagreement between the head coach and the quarterback cannot bear positive fruit.

What’s left in Green Bay now? For the Packers, McCarthy’s release is a new opportunity, but also a risk. After all, no one guarantees a franchise that it will make the right choice in the head coach search.

And nobody can guarantee the Packers that Rodgers will actually find his way back to the old MVP form under a new coach. That a new head coach has the same effect on the franchise as McCarthy did for Favre and then Rodgers. A mistake now, and the next head coach might have to go on a quarterback search in two years.

An ideal solution for the Packers now would be an offensive head coach who would stick to defensive coordinator Mike Pettine. There has been clear progress this year and the young Defense would benefit from continuing to grow in Pettine’s scheme.

Rodgers should at least be involved in the selection process. Of course he will not make the decision, but it is also clear that Green Bay will have to prevent a powder keg like the one we have seen between Rodgers and McCarthy over the past few months under all circumstances.

And then Rodgers and the new coach have to show that they can lead the Packers to the top again.