Heading into the 2016 season, the Green Bay Packers were expected to be a playoff contender, at the very least. Some felt that with Jordy Nelson back and Aaron Rodgers being, well, Aaron Rodgers, the Packers were once again Super Bowl contenders.
So far this season that hasn’t been the case. In fact, there’s a very good chance the Pack don’t even make the playoffs. Green Bay has played terrible football as of late. In the midst of a four-game losing streak, the Packers are 4-6 on the season and in third place in the NFC North.
Rodgers has been average, the running game is non-existent with Eddie Lacy injured, and Green Bay’s defense — and especially its secondary — has been terrible at times.
Head coach Mike McCarthy is squarely on the hot seat with his team not living up to expectations. And as a whole, the Packers’ organization should be questioned. Since winning the Super Bowl in 2010, it’s been a string of disappointments for the team. The closest to the pinnacle Green Bay has gotten was the conference championship game back in January of 2015, a game that saw the Packers blow a first-half lead only to lose in overtime to the Seahawks.
A case can be made that the Packers, in their current form, are wasting not just talent, but the prime of Rodgers’ career. A case can be made that McCarthy is too stuck in his ways to succeed with the team as is. A case can certainly be made that defensive coordinator Dom Capers is starting to lose his touch.
But still, Rob Demovsky of ESPN reports that that Packer president Mark Murphy is unhappy, but he’s not yet ready to make changes. Murphy spoke on a local radio station in Milwaukee, WTMJ, basically implying that there’s still hope for this team.
“I do hear from a lot of fans. And I tell fans: Like them, I’m disappointed,” Murphy said. “Certainly, the season hasn’t gone the way we had all hoped, but there’s a lot of football left to be played. And the other thing I tell people is, you’ve got to look at Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy’s track record.”
Even though Murphy is the president, he doesn’t have the capability to fire anyone on his own accord, because the Packers are uniquely run by a Board of Directors. They’ve been a publicly owned, non-profit since 1923.
According to Murphy, though, that power structure means that rash decisions may be avoided, and he, at least, believes that’s a good thing. He believes making moves for the sake of making moves would not benefit the organization.
“The [public perception] of that is, the Packers are really harmed because they don’t have an individual owner who can go in and fire somebody,” Murphy said. “Well, if you look across the league, when those individual owners do things like that, it usually doesn’t turn out very well. The answer isn’t just to fire people midseason, especially, [given that] we’ve had a run of success.
“Our coaches and personnel people and Ted and Mike have shown in the past they can turn things around. I think that taking that approach certainly makes more sense than just firing people to fire people.”
Green Bay plays at Philadelphia this Monday night in a huge game for the Packers.