To modify something I heard Rodgers shout in one of those pre-game huddle things, the team needs the following attitude in all things.
1. Dominate!
2. Dominate!
3. Dominate!
1,2,3 (and 4,5,6, ...) Dominate!
One of McCarthy's problems over the years is that he has a tendency toward trying to finesse things. Trying to trick people. Trying to fool people. Trying to be smarter than the other guy.
Those things are okay from time to time, but not as a consistent approach.
That IMO was set Lombardi apart from every Packer coach since. It wasn't the fact that he had more Hall of Famers. It wasn't even the Packer sweep. It was that Lombardi teams week in and week out had a take no prisoners approach. Their intent was not to just win. Their intent was to impose their will on the other team. Their intent was to destroy the other team's will to win.
It didn't always work because no one wins every time they are on the field. But *that* was a winning attitude.
Holmgren didn't have it. Someone who has it not only never lets the other team score to get the ball back. They never contemplate letting the other team score because they already *know* they are going to get the ball back. Because they are going to impose their will and make them give it back.
And, I fear, neither does McCarthy.
Does that mean the Packers will never get back to the Super Bowl with McCarthy? No. They may. Finesse coaches can win championships. Holmgren won one. McCarthy won one. It can be done.
But it definitely decreases the odds.
And unless McCarthy recognizes this finesse tendency of his and works at eliminating it, it decreases those odds more each year.
Because it's a lot easier for the other guy to destroy the will of someone who depends on finesse than it is to destroy the will of someone who knows they have the strongest will to dominate.
Ask our resident Marine. No one knows this better than the Marine Corps. And that's why they are more consistently successful than any other military group in our nation's history. They know it isn't about finessing things.
Finesse is for bridge and synchronized swimming and corporate lawyers.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)