Packers’ Mike McCarthy: “I’ve always been a believer in the fullback”

The Green Bay Packers’ head coach speaks to the media before each practice, and on Tuesday Mike McCarthy discussed some of his offensive philosophies in broad terms. Speaking from the podium at Lambeau Field, McCarthy discussed a variety of topics including his overall approach to the passing game and the plan for the Packers’ third preseason game, coming up Friday in San Francisco.

One other item that McCarthy addressed was his belief in the fullback position, which has become somewhat of a dinosaur in the modern NFL. However, while the Packers appear poised to slim down from two fullbacks on the roster last year to one in 2016, don’t expect them to ever go without one entirely - at least not as long as McCarthy is in charge.

Here is a transcript of McCarthy’s comments on Tuesday morning.

• (What is the goal in the third preseason game?) The goal is to obviously play Aaron (Rodgers) and play our guys, but we’ll evaluate today’s practice and we’ll have that meeting tomorrow.
• (Is it hard to evaluate the offense without Rodgers playing?) We’re not evaluating our offense, we’re doing more than that. We’re building a football team. You don’t go into these games clearly set on trying to win the scheme game, you’re playing different combinations of plyaers. Whether Aaron’s in there or not you’re looking at more than one thing. I think our young quarterbacks have done well.
• (Do you feel better about the passing game with Jordy Nelson back and the addition of Jared Cook?) I think you have to have all cylinders working for you. If you look at how you throw the football, you throw two different ways. You have an action passing game, and you have a dropback game. With that, you have a quick game, you have intermediate, and you have down the field. You want to be able to produce in all those areas because that’s how you want to attack a defense ... how we play will really be determined how we line up each week and how we think our opponent’s going to play us.
• (On the rookie offensive tackles) I think Jason Spriggs has done a really good job, he’s improving each and every week ... once you get out of that install phase, it’s actually easier for the players as far as what they’re working on, the volume of what they’re working on each practice. Murph (Kyle Murphy), he’s missed some time. It was really good to get him into the game against Oakland, played a lot more than we anticipated. It will be important for him to have a good practice today and get ready to play against the 49ers.
• (On the role of the fullback in the Packers’ offense) Aaron (Ripkowski) is doing a good job. He’s definitely taking that step you look for in that second year. I’ve always been a believer in the fullback. You talk about offense, you have a one-back offense and you have a two-back offense.

The Packers practice at 11:45 AM today.