Why MM needs to go

[InsideOut]

I'll never understand the TT hate and the Hammond love. TT look an over the hill team and blew it up and 2 years later had them an OT Favre pick from the Super Bowl. We have been known as one of the best AND youngest teams in the league and until being decimated by injuries were a popular pick to win the Super Bowl. He has drafted stars like Rodger and Mathews and made one of the best FA pickups ever in Woodson. Without all these injuries were looking at 5-1 or 6-0 and the team to beat. On the other hand Hammond hasn't brought in a single great player and has an older maxed out payroll with no shot at a title and yet some see him as a miracle worker. Heck, when the Bucks lost Bogut at the end of the season Hammond was loved all the more because we could have beat Atlanta with Bogut in the lineup. Why shouldn't the same common sense be applied to TT?

The Packers are a great team and would have been in the hunt to win a Super Bowl if it weren't for the injuries...it is just that simple. Yes, injuries are part of the game but that doesn't mean if you lose a bunch of starters that you should still be expected win all your games. Show me any team that won the Super Bowl while missing their starting RB, best defender and 8 other contributing players. It just doesn't work that way. And what did Moss ever win in New England? And now Lynch gets 17 carries for 44 yards and for some that proves he would have saved our season. I see nothing but a lot of overreaction here.

[MajorDad]

something that is not really talked about or said about Tt is the importance of his drafts. yes, we give them a grade. and he gets an A sometimes and a B and sometimes a C, etc.

but what we don't realize is that unlike other teams that make use of trades and free agency, when Tt drafts, he's drafting the packers starters. That 3rd and 4th round pick are as important as the first and second round picks because they are also expected to be starters. another team might consider their 4th round pick as trade material or as a special teams player or as a potential project. other teams might use their picks to select the best available player, and then work a deal with some other team. But because TT doesn't draft players with the intention of trading them, he drafts to plug holes and starters rather than drafting the best available player on the board. Oftentimes , we miss out on some quality players because we are too focused on using our draft picks to fill holes rather than using free agency to do so.

if you think about it, not only does Tt have to hit a home run with his first round pick, but he has to hit a home run with his second, third, 4th and maybe 5th round picks, because they will all be used to fill holes and starters shoes a lot earlier than on other clubs who will go after a quick fix veteran. our offensive line suffered tremendously tw o years ago because Tt wanted to replace veterans with draft picks who had zero experience in the NFL and also zero experience in a zone blocking scheme. our offensive line has improved tremendously, but it would have been nice if Tt had been able to provide a smoother transistion.

What hurts the packers most is when so much is accoutable to a draft pick, and then that draft pick is injured. Since we don't make many trades or acquire very many free agents, the team is decimated when a player who you are counting on as a first round pick or second round pick is injured in game 2-3 and lost for the season. and sadly, that has happened in almost every year Tt has been a GM that he has lost one of his top 3 draft picks for the season. the same is true this year.

TT has made some good drafts. But unlike other teams, because he uses his draft as his primary source of talent, he has to do better than the other teams rather than do just as well. because other teams will have their daft and also be adding additional veteran players, whereas Tt will only be adding players through the draft.

This is what annoys me about TT . he knows he has to do well in the draft. and he usually does pretty well. but if he were a bigger player in free agency, he could use free agency to plug the holes that need plugging, and use the draft to select the best available talent rather tha n using it to fill our needs.

and rather than always looking down the road to ensure we are successful in the future, it would be nice if just once Tt would stop and look at the present and decide to hell with the future and try to win it all NOW!

and for those people who love history and stats, if you look back, 90% of the teams that won the super bowl or the NBA championship or the World series are those teams that sacrificed their future to win it all NOW! both the phillies and rangers this year made trades for a 1/2 year rental of a pitching ace(Lee, Oswaldt). the yankees acquired berkman. the heat signed lebron and bosh. the lakers are always signing a vet like malone, or gashol. Why? to win it now rather than down the road. GMs who focus on winning down the road are always focusing on down the road. people who are focused at winning now actually do win Now.

[MajorDad]

Inside out - that's the problem and TT's biggest flaw.

Other GM's if they experience injuries to key players will work the phones to find a quick fix solution especially if they have high expectations going into the year. you can bet in john Elway's last year, his GM did everything he could to ensure john went out on top.

but TT will never do that. he'll never make a panic trade.

the packers had high expectations when Walker was their starting wide receiver several years back. When he was lost for the year in the second game of the season, Tt could have made a trade to replace him with a veteran WR. but rather, he decided to use the back-ups instead. and the season was wasted.

when grant was lost this year , there were other RBs available besaides just Lynch. julious jones and willie parker are just two names. Tt could also have made a trade for an RB. but no.

Finley is lost for the year. Will TT try to acquire a TE before the trading deadline? NO.

and at the end of the year , when the packers go 8-8, T T will say, well, if not for those injuries, we could have had a great season. This season could still have been great if Tt was willing to trade to replace the injured players. But no, he won't , so look for that 8-8 season and same lame excuse at the end of the year. it's as if TT is using injuries as his scapegoat for not doing his job. and frankly, i'm getting tired of hearing the injury excuse as the reason we didn't win it all.

[TurdFerguson3]

human refutation:

I know my history. i just didn't want to bore everybody with a 25 page post. people like twirls can't even finish reading my 1 page posts.

I used gruden as an example. When TT hired MM, there were plenty of other experienced coaches. yo u know tha t and i know that. Do you want me to provide you a list of the 2,560 th t were available? i used gruden as one example of the type of guy that was available. HMMMMM. gruden is available now isn't he? as is Cowher. but MM still has TT's confidence and the job. The golphers' coac h was fired mid season. Wade phillips should be fired mid season. it's not to late to fire MM, but T T won't. .

many football analysts have admitted the reasons why tony Dungy would never win a championship with the Bucs. And why did he win one for the Colts? because he basically went back to being a defensive coo-ordinator and allowed payton manning to be his offensive co-ordinator and run the entire offense and call his own plays. yes he was the head coach. But his role as head coach was drastically different in indy. if Dungy ran the colts like he ran the Bucs, they would not have enjoyed the same level of success. without payton manning, calling the plays, the Colts go nowhere.

as for Seattle, they made it to the Superbowl the year after TT left. many people say that's because it was the team that TT built. the reality is the year after TT left, seattle sacrificed their future to go for it all that next year. they actually signed a couple of veteran free agents. They made a couple of trades. and they made it to the super bowl. yes , Seattle has regressed. that's because they sacrificed their future to win it all that year.

for your reputation of long posts, i quite enjoyed and agreed with this

[El Duderino]

I don't think TT and MM are necessarily an inseparable package. Yes MM is definitely TT's guy and that is worth a lot in TT's evaluation process, he sticks with his guys, sometimes to a fault. I don't see MM being fired this season because the injuries are really a sort of built in excuse for whatever the record is because they have been absurd in quantity.

I do want MM gone, I defended him longer than most but at some point enough is enough with stupid penalties, bad play calling, horrific challenges and poor special teams play.

I personally can't fathom how anyone can be upset with the personnel TT has put on the roster anymore but to each their own.

Thompson doesn't have an owner like Daniel Snyder who hires a quasi-GM and then Snyder hires the head coach along with interfering on player decisions.

This whole show is Ted's. Whoever is the head coach during Thompson's tenure as GM will be his call. If Ted doesn't feel McCarthy is making the correct hires on say the special teams coaches, he can tell McCarthy to make a change. When the decision was made to hire Slocum, i have a hard time envisioning that Thompson didn't have any input.

When a GM has the super high level of authority like Thompson has in Green Bay as Wolf had before him, i think that GM should deserve by far the most credit for any success that team ended up having and the most blame for any lack of success.

Reasons for that is any GM in football with full authority means that it's their players on the field and their head coach they hired. Look at Ron Wolf. Yea he put together fabulous rosters that got close to a Super Bowl in 1995 and got there in 96/97. Imagine though if he hadn't given up that 2nd round pick to hire Holmgren and instead Wolf balked at giving up the 2nd which lead to him hiring an inferior quality head coach like he did later on with Rhodes, the Packers may not have ever made those two trips to the Super Bowl, including one championship.

If say Ted keeps McCarthy on as head coach another 1-2-3 years and the team continues having many of the same problems which leads to more limited success getting to and/or advancing in the playoffs, that's on Thompson IMO as much as McCarthy because Ted is the only one who would fire McCarthy and hire his replacement. Mark Murphy isn't going to tell Thompson who should be coaching the Packers.

[xTitan]

I will tell you why I am leaning toward MM being replaced at the end of the year and that is because he is a total fraud. The day TT hired MM, he stood at the podium and talked about Pittsburgh macho, I truly believe Ted wanted a team built along the lines of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Steelers are a smaller, blue collar city, they draft and develop, they are a physical, defensive team, that is not only physically tough but mentally tough. When you look at this years version of the Packers, you see no toughness, physical or mental, this team commits stupid penalites with no consequences for those that do it, this team continues to make terrible mental misakes at the end of games with no consequences....McCarthy is anything but Pittsburgh macho he is completely soft and it reflects on his team....undisciplined and that never works.

[an_also]

The sad part is that MM was very very good after we started 4-4 last year.

[Rockmaninoff]

The sad part is that MM was very very good after we started 4-4 last year.

Yeah, I'm not entirely convinced he has to go yet. He has brought the team back before, and he took them to the Championship game with Favre.

I think it's more on Aaron to use the force, and get this team a win.

[raysbookclub]

And now Lynch gets 17 carries for 44 yards and for some that proves he would have saved our season. I see nothing but a lot of overreaction here.

I really like TT (and Hammond). And I think that most blame right now should go to MM. I'm not making an anti-TT post. That said, I posted before about yesterday's Seattle game showing that he made a mistake (like Wolf made mistakes) not getting Lynch, and I see some are pointing to a box score to say that's unwarranted. If you saw the game, not just the box, you saw the difference Lynch made.

Watch these NFL network guys talking about Lynch's impact yesterday,

http://www.nfl.com/videos/seattle-seaha ... k-Seahawks