Green Bay Packers Fire Head Coach Mike McCarthy Following Loss To Cardinals

Two years ago the Green Bay Packers finished 10-6 and won the NFC North title. Last year, they dropped to 7-9 missing the playoffs for the first time since 2008. Since they were without starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers for most of the 2017 campaign its hard to find fault with that performance. Life in the NFL is brutal, however, and on Sunday the Packers fired head coach Mike McCarthy following a 20-17 loss to the Arizona Cardinals at Lambeau Field. That loss dropped the Packers to 4-7-1 and while they’re not officially eliminated from the playoffs they have a very tough road to make the postseason. Should Green Bay fall short it will be the first time they’ve missed the playoffs in back to back seasons since 2005 and 2006.

Packers’ President Mark Murphy made the announcement just three hours after Sunday’s loss to Arizona. Noting that “the 2018 season has not lived up to the expectations and standards of the Green Bay Packers.” he announced that he’d make the “difficult decision to relieve Mike McCarthy of his role as head coach, effective immediately.” Murphy did thank McCarthy for his job as a “head coach and leader” for 13 seasons and credited him for the team enjoying “a great deal of success on and off the field”. As a result, I made the difficult decision to relieve Mike McCarthy of his role as head coach, effective immediately,” Packers president Mark Murphy said in a statement. “Mike has been a terrific head coach and leader of the Packers for 13 seasons, during which time we experienced a great deal of success on and off the field.” The on-field success includes 9 playoff appearances, 4 trips to the NFC Championship game and a victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV.

There’s a conventional wisdom that it’s a ‘slap in the face’ to fire a NFL head coach during the regular season. That may be true in most cases, but specific to this situation it might be a tactical move that is advantageous to both McCarthy and the Packers. It gives the Packers a chance to evaluate interim head coach Joe Philbin as well as to get a head start on vetting the other available coaching options. It also gives McCarthy a chance to be considered for coaching jobs that will open up after the end of the season. There’s also been talk that he might be a candidate to replace Hue Jackson as head coach of the Cleveland Browns.

In the betting odds to be the Packers’ next head coach there are three favorites priced at single digits. Currently, the shortest odds are on New England Patriots’ offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels (+225). McDaniels has head coaching experience (Denver Broncos 2009 and 2010) and is considered one of the sharpest offensive minds in the NFL. In theory, he’d be a perfect fit as the Packers try to revive their offense and rebuild around the considerable talents of Aaron Rodgers. One potential downside with McDaniels is his flirtation with the heading coaching job at Indianapolis last year. McDaniels accepted the gig but on the day he was to be announced as the Colts’ new head coach decided to stay with the Patriots. The Colts landed on their feet hiring Frank Reich but it was an embarrassing situation for the franchise.

Two potential head coaches are priced at +300. John Defilippo is the offensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings though he really ‘made his bones’ as quarterbacks coach of the Philadelphia Eagles during their Super Bowl winning 2017 season. The other candidate at this price is the current college football ‘flavor of the month’, Oklahoma Sooners’ Lincoln Riley. Riley is 24-3 as a college football head coach and brings an impressive resume as an OC and QB coach with stops at Oklahoma, Texas Tech and East Carolina.

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