Green Bay Packers: What led to the Mike McCarthy firing

Here’s what led to the firing of longtime Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy.

The Green Bay Packers loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday was the last straw for head coach Mike McCarthy. Only a few hours after the game, team president Mark Murphy made the decision to fire McCarthy and named offensive coordinator Joe Philbin the interim head coach. The 2018 season has been disastrous for McCarthy and the Packers, but losing to one of the worst teams in the NFL with Aaron Rodgers at quarterback and falling to 4-7-1 on the season will do it for just about anybody.

The only surprising thing about the decision is the timing. Out of respect, most believed McCarthy would be allowed to finish out the season before any changes were made. In 13 seasons with Green Bay, he reached the playoffs nine times, finished with a 127-77-2 record and won a Super Bowl. Certainly enough to get him into the Hall of Fame one day.

However, too many poor coaching decisions, lack of accountability, a sputtering offense, and a disengaged MVP quarterback meant now was as good a time as any to part ways. For weeks the team has lacked energy and with their backs up against the wall on Sunday, there was no sense of urgency. Clearly, his message had run its course.

After the game against Arizona, McCarthy admitted he had no idea what was next.

“I mean, I’ve never been in this spot,” McCarthy said in his postgame press conference. “I’m not going to act like I know what the hell I’m going to do tomorrow when they get in here. So we’re going to do what we always do. We’re going to represent the Packers the right way, I know that. Other than that, we’ll focus on what’s in front of us.”

The signs of a failing system can be traced back to week three. The Packers were visiting the Washington Redskins and easily put forth one of their most disappointing performances in quite some time. McCarthy was unable to commit to the run game despite a one-legged Rodgers and a limited offense failed to produce.

The very next week following a win over the Buffalo Bills, Rodgers had this to say about the offense: “It was as bad as we’ve played on offense with that many yards in a long time.”

He began to subtly take shots at the play-calling, indicating there was no flow of the offense for most of the game and the reason why was not a question to be directed at him.

This was our first sign there could be a disconnect between Rodgers and McCarthy.

More strange events transpired in the coming weeks. First, they were embarrassed by the Detroit Lions and then a Monday night game against the lowly San Francisco 49ers with no Jimmy Garoppolo came down to the bitter end.

The Packers then began their most critical stretch of the season and whereas the offense is usually picking it up this time of the year, they were actually trending in the wrong direction.

They went on to lose five of the next six games and are now all but mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. This stretch was littered with bad play calling and questionable coaching. McCarthy was constantly getting out-coached by his opposition and Rodgers’ body language continued to get worse. The QB had no concrete answers as to why the offense was so bad this late into the season. Meanwhile, McCarthy’s press conferences had started to become a broken record of him telling reporters he needed to coach better.

At some point, enough was enough. By week 13’s matchup against the Cardinals, McCarthy’s team was no longer playing Green Bay Packers football and the embarrassing performance forced Murphy to make a decision.

Now, Green Bay’s front office is tasked the extremely difficult feat of finding a strong innovating, offensive-minded coach that can also mesh with Rodgers. General manager Brian Gutekunst will have a voice in who the next head coach will be, however, because Murphy was the one to fire McCarthy, he will likely have the final say of his replacement.

Packers fans must wait and hope the next coach will light a fire under Rodgers and not put him further away from another Lombardi trophy.