Mike to conservative equals Teddy to Tightwad. If the shoe fits...

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“We weren’t maybe as aggressive as I would have liked.” says Mike McCarthy after today's win over the Jaguars.

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Nooooo.
Say it ain't so Coach.
Look like a typical game for the GB offense.

However, being the first game of the year. On the road and in the heat and under the approach that so many NFL teams have during the preseason of not playing their starters very much along with having very little contact in practices, it only makes sense once you get the lead to just try and work the clock as much as possible.

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Why NFL Coaches Take No Chances
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-nfl-coaches-take-no-chances-1482880499 

Saw this today in the WSJ and thought of the constant complaints about McCarthy being conservative.

For those of you that do not have a WSJ subscription, I'll highlight a couple items from the article below.

Overall, NFL coaches are not nearly aggressive enough according to third party mathematicians and economists based on win probability modeling. As an example, the rates at which teams convert two point conversions vs. the rates at which teams convert extra points would dictate going for two as the better option in most circumstances. As we all know, most teams only rarely go for two.

The WSJ performed an analysis of conservatism across NFL head coaches. They do not say much about their methodology other than the below:



According to the WSJ analysis, McCarthy was the 5th most aggressive head coach on fourth down, 12th most aggressive in play calling, joint 3rd most aggressive with special teams, and the 3rd most aggressive overall.

Interestingly, Ben McAdoo, having coached under McCarthy from 2004 through 2013, was the most aggressive of all current NFL head coaches.

I found this interesting as it flies in the face of the constant criticism of McCarthy's conservatism on this forum, this thread being just one example. As I said above, they say very little about their methodology, so it's hard to comment on the WSJ's accuracy. Perhaps their data is wrong. Perhaps the sample size is too small. Perhaps the methodology is poor. I can't tell you.

But if there is merit to the WSJ analysis, it begs the question: why is McCarthy so widely viewed as conservative among Packer fans?

Are we rightly criticizing conservative decisions but failing to recognize how frequently those same conservative decisions are made across the league? We've had the same head coach for over a decade now. It becomes easier to judge McCarthy in a bubble every year we become further removed from our last head coach. One of my mates who is a Pats fan finds himself doing this with the Patriots. He bitches about decisions made by Belichick only to stop and remind himself how grossly more successful Belichick is than every other coach over the past several decades. And he asks himself how frequently these same complaints could be levied on other teams.

Do we remember a few instances of conservatism that have proved particularly haunting and thus over-inflate how often those decisions are made? I've seen several complaints about "prevent" defense against Chicago last week. I seem to recall a lot of five and six man blitzes in that fourth quarter (with none of them getting home). Maybe I'm misremembering, but if not, that's the opposite of a prevent defense. Are we retroactively filling in the Packers running a "prevent" defense because we've had such issues in the past?

Anyway, TL;DR, thought it was interesting that an outside analysis found McCarthy to be one of the most aggressive coaches in the NFL when we largely, myself included, do not see McCarthy that way.

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mi_keys- does McCarthy get credit for calling blitzes? I have no doubt that he and Dom talk general concepts about how they want to approach a team. But I can't accept the fact that he tells his DC he wants to blitz more or less. Or even go into a prevent defense. Mike may tell the DC that he is playing too soft too soon or too aggressive in a game but other than that I can't see him getting into any kind of specifics.

What about the offense? Does this take into consideration a HC trying to burn the clock for the whole second half of a game that he is going away from the type of offense that got the team the lead. And that he has become very predicable by calling running plays almost exclusively? Especially one 1st and 2nd downs. That the play calls have put them into 3rd ad very long time after time?

If it survey doesn't factor these into his dynamics then their data is suspect.

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How on earth do you lose the NFC game against Seattle without being conservative?

Let's see how the game started:

* 4-1-SEA 1 (8:10) M.Crosby 18 yard field goal is GOOD, Center-B.Goode, Holder-T.Masthay
* 4-1-SEA 1 (5:10) M.Crosby 19 yard field goal is GOOD, Center-B.Goode, Holder-T.Masthay.
* 4-1-SEA 22 (9:42) M.Crosby 40 yard field goal is GOOD, Center-B.Goode, Holder-T.Masthay.

This is ULTRA MEGA DUPER conservative.
TWICE went for the FG at the 1 yard line of a rival that is always a problem for us.

I have a friend that is a Seahawks fan, after the 2nd FG from the 1 he said to me "we are going to win this one", I was afraid he was right...

Ok, You are 16-0 at halftime, when you should be 28-0 or 21-0.

Then:

* 4-1-GB 48 (11:05) T.Masthay punts 44 yards to SEA 8, Center-B.Goode. B.Walters to SEA 22 for 14 yards (J.Elliott).

Ok, let's try to accept you can eschew going for it from midfield if you are ahead. Wrong! An aggressive coach would have seen here a chance to end the game, you convert to you put even more points on the board and take even more time from the clock. You don't convert you have them at midfield, not so bad considering the punt only made a 26 yards difference.

We enter the 4th quarter 19-7

* (5:13) (Shotgun) R.Wilson pass short middle intended for J.Kearse INTERCEPTED by M.Burnett at GB 39. M.Burnett to GB 43 for 4 yards.Went down on his own.

This could have been a TD and Burnett goes down on his own with 5:13 on the clock!!! This is not only conservative, this is coward!
Ok, let's say we can blame Burnett for going down and not the coach (I have my doubts), let's see how you finish this game in style:

(5:04) (Shotgun) E.Lacy left tackle to GB 39 for -4 yards (K.Williams).
(4:57) (Shotgun) E.Lacy left tackle to GB 37 for -2 yards (M.Bennett).
(4:50) (Shotgun) E.Lacy up the middle to GB 39 for 2 yards (B.Wagner; M.Bennett)

WHAT THE HELL? This sounds like a team that is winning 42-0 or something... we just miled er... 14 seconds from the clock. And then we all knew what happened....

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

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If you watched the game, you can clearly see the players failed to execute multiple times. From Clinton-Dix on the fake field goal, to letting a WR get behind you, to Bostick going for the ball instead of boxing out on onsides kick, I mean, countless times where PLAYERS failed to do their job.

Amazing how far some will reach just to bash someone. Unreal.

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I think it's safe to say that both the coaching staff and the players were culpable in that disaster.

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No one is disputing that, are they? No.

Let me be clear. I am saying we didn't lose that game because the coach was "ULTRA MEGA DUPER conservative".

This is where I'm coming from.

Seahawks
2014 15.9 (1st)
2013 14.4 (1st)
2012 15.3 (1st)

That means they don't give up many points.
That means when you can put points on the board, you put points on the board.
That means when you had three shots at (or inside) the 7 yard line (this happened TWICE) and fail to get a TD, you take the points.

What indication do you have that you're going to get it with one more try against the leagues best defense? You take the points.

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Saying the score should have been 21 - 0, 28 - 0 at halftime? That's showing no respect to the other team and in my opinion, flat out wrong to do. Seattle was number one for multiple years for a reason!

Morgan Burnett sliding after his late 4th quarter interception was cowardly? I mean, seriously? COWARDLY? He was being instructed to slide by Julius Peppers, not Mike McCarthy. That's on the player, not the coach being conservative.

You're up by 12 points with 5 minutes left. You burn the clock and the other teams timeouts, obviously.

Punting the ball 30 yards? That's on the player, not the coach being conservative.

Bostick ignoring his responsibility on the onsides kick? That's on the player, not the coach being conservative.

Make no mistake about it, I do think McCarthy gets conservative at times. It's just not the reason we lost vs Seahawks in 2014 season. The Players had multiple opportunities to seal that game and failed.

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Mike gets emotionally tight whenit's all on the line. That carries over to the team. They start to emotionally contract, and bad things happen.

We all felt the "Here we go again." So did the players.

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