Mike McCarthy On Adversity Situations

I’ve stopped reading MM interviews for that reason. And that he tried to say with a straight face that he likes their punter situation. I think by “adversity situations” he probably means third downs, red zone, and closing out games.

It’s OK Mike. We all are…

Basically, he means when the defense has to make sudden changes/adjustments or coming out onto the field after a TO or long kick return (basically an unfavorable situation). I remember reading an article earlier in the year where he talked about these things and he’s right.

Our defense really, really struggled with making adjustments throughout games. The Cardinals game comes to mind when looking for an example. The Cardinals starting running a 3 Wr bunch set (basically the Wr’s line up 2 on the line of scrimmage, and 1 off the line between and behind the 2 on the line of scrimmage) and they absolutely torched us with it. I kept hoping that we would make an adjustment to try and stop it but we never did. MM has hinted at the fact that our on the field communication wasn’t great on defense, which plays a big factor in making the proper adjustments throughout the game.

Most of these things are generally things that improve with experience, which is good news for us. While I think a lot of our defensive struggles had to do with these “adversity” situations, some of them definitely had to do with the fact that we had Bush, Bell, and Bigby as starters. Bush and Bell will hopefully rarely-never see the field again on defense. Bigby might improve after some more experience but I personally think he needs to be replaced. When looking back at last season, it’s just kind of ironic that we were so good against the run and weak against the pass. Total flip-flop, from the 2-3 seasons before 09’. Hopefully the pass defense can bounce back this coming season.

I agree about the “coach-speak” cliches. What he’s doing with this “adversity situations” term is pretending to have a super-focused, hyper-technical perspective as a pro coach that mere mortals just can’t see. You could say the same thing with the words “we folded when facing an elite QB.” The use of the term creates an illusion that our players lacked some knowledge or something instead of just getting beat.

He also does way too much talking about the no-calls in the Arizona game last year. The media loves it because it gives them something to write about, and he likes to smile and wink when he says something about it, but no amount of smiling and winking can remove the fact that he’s making excuses. The head coach should never make excuses, and I’ve seen him do it a handful of times already this off-season. It’s a bad sign.

If history is a guide, the Pack will have a disappointing record this season, and then, when the year’s over, MM will talk about injuries and how we could have had more wins if the ball had bounced our way on just a few plays. “Instead of 9-6, we could’ve been 11-5 if these three plays had gone differently.”

I don’t know. I like MM overall. He seems to be a good teacher and a patient guy, but the excuses and denials/delusions seem to be adding up and forming a pattern of a guy that lacks something character-wise.

Maybe he’s just not a winner.