Green Bay Packers’ head coach Mike McCarthy has made some drastic changes to his coaching staff, first and foremost being the relinquishing of playing calling duties to new associate head coach Tom Clements. I don’t necessarily believe these changes were a direct result of the crushing loss in the NFC Championship game, I just think it is the natural evolution of a head coach with McCarthy’s tenure.
In Clements McCarthy has a man who he trusts, who quarterback Aaron Rodgers trusts, and who knows the Packers’ offensive philosophy having spent nine years at McCarthy’s side. Offensively, I don’t expect to see a lot of changes other than Rodgers maybe having more leeway in changing plays at the line of scrimmage. Rodgers may have had some leeway previously but changing the head coaches call is a little different. Apparently he didn’t have the guts to change any of the three run plays called on the Packers’ last offensive series against Seattle.
Elsewhere on offense McCarthy promoted Edgar Bennett to offensive coordinator and gave dual responsibilities to Alex Van Pelt, who now oversees both quarterbacks and wide receivers. McCarthy also added veteran coach Mike Solari has to assist offensive line coach James Campen, which is a move I really like. Campen’s unit had probably its best year ever last year but the wealth of knowledge Solari brings will not only keep that unit performing at high level but also make Campen a better coach.
McCarthy’s other big move was removing special teams coordinator Shawn Slocum and replacing him with Ron Zook, who was Slocum’s “assistant” last year. Judging from some of Zook’s comments yesterday I don’t think that was a very good relationship. Zook stopped himself a couple of times when talking about Slocum in order not to say anything bad about him. I expect to see a great improvement in that area with Zook being in control and McCarthy being more hands on. It certainly appears McCarthy’s eyes were opened last year by the poor play of this unit culminating with that horrible performance in Seattle.
When McCarthy said in his delayed post season press conference that the 2015 team will not bear the burden of 2014 he meant it. These changes should help create a new atmosphere when the team regroups for the offseason program in April.
Kudos to McCarthy for not standing pat even though the Packers were one play away from the Super Bowl last year.