The Packers’ 4-5 record this season and 9-12 record in their last 21 games has led to increasing criticism of the work being done by head coach Mike McCarthy, who took some time this week to remind the masses that he’s a “highly successful NFL coach.”
Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers didn’t describe McCarthy that way on Wednesday and he made no mention of McCarthy’s many leather-bound books, but he did offer words of support for his head coach. He called suggestions that there’s a rift between the two men “crap” and had a similar feeling about other outside critiques of the coach.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” Rodgers said, via the team’s website. “I think people don’t understand how difficult it is to win in this league and win consistently. The success that we’ve had here, it’s tough to do, and we’ve set the standard pretty high. But I wouldn’t listen to some of those people out there. They’re not in this locker room, they’re not in the meeting rooms, they’re not in the practice environments. They don’t know what’s going on. They don’t know the type of work ethic that we have here and that Mike has here.”
Whether people understand how difficult it is to win in the NFL or not, teams still labor under the expectation that you’re going to do it consistently or find someone else who can. The Packers have done that in the past, but the longer they go without doing it in the present guarantees that the criticism isn’t going to go anywhere.