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After a decade of working behind the scenes, Green Bay Packers president Mark Murphy took a major step into the spotlight in early 2018.
Responding to a disappointing 2017 season, Murphy moved Ted Thompson out of his general manager position, hired Brian Gutekunst to take his place, and retained Mike McCarthy as head coach.
Normally, it wouldn’t be up to a team president to make a coaching decision, but Murphy gave himself that responsibility in a series of somewhat unusual (and more than a little contradictory) moves. The end result was a power structure in which the head coach and general manager reside on essentially equal footing, both reporting to Murphy.
Now, as the Packers play out the string on another disappointing season, Murphy has a decision to make: will he make the call on McCarthy’s future himself or empower his general manager to make a call that almost every other team in the league leaves to their general manager?
The ball is in Murphy’s court and the future of the Packers depends on it.
Future of Packers coach Mike McCarthy should be GM Brian Gutekunst’s call | Packers News
Addressing Murphy’s power over the Packers, Tom Silverstein argues Murphy should step aside on the question of who coaches the team next year, deferring to general manager Brian Gutekunst.
On the hot seat: Mike McCarthy has highest odds to be next NFL head coach fired | Cheesehead TV
No matter who makes the call on McCarthy’s future, Vegas has decided the odds are good he’s going to be out of a job in the near future.
What You Might’ve Missed: Close but not quite | Packers.com
“Close but not quite” is a pretty good summary of half a dozen Packers games this year at least, but as Mike Spofford shows here, it was especially true of this week’s loss to the Vikings.
Davante Adams on pace to threaten Packers’ triple crown of receiving records | Packers Wire
Adams is top 10 in the NFL in receptions, receiving yards, and touchdowns and he’s closing in on Packers records in each of those categories. Pretty good!
Finally, in addition to having a great name, Gerhard de Beer just seems like a nice young man.
“People like to say ‘I brought de Beer.’ And people come back and say ‘Where’s the beer?’ So I’m like, ‘Oh, hello, sorry for the disappointment, but I am de Beer.’”