Greg Jennings: Green Bay Packers head coach, Mike McCarthy, holds offense back

Gregg Jennings doesn’t mince words and when he went on Undisputed today, he did more than lean into Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy – he lit him up

Let’s allow Jennings to tell it in his own words. Take a listen to the video provided from Undisputed and posted today on Twitter …

Frankly, I can’t disagree with the message relayed by Jennings … McCarthy is conservative when it comes to play-calling. We all know that.

But that’s his style of coaching … get a lead, let the offense run time off the clock as much as possible, and let the defense bend and hopefully not break. The hope is that the lead is big enough that the team can hold on, play the clock, and hope time runs out before the other team catches up.

Is it the best way to run a football team?

Not according to Jennings.

However, Jennings is missing the major point here. It’s not about the offense and “going for the throat,” as he says Bill Bellichick does.

It’s about the defense.

Jennings is correct when he describes the 2010 defense as “great.” He is also correct in saying that the defense took a step back in 2011. Yes, they went way back.

The problem with the Packers not winning more than one Super Bowl title during McCarthy’s reign has always been the defense.

Oh, sure, you can point to Brett Favre throwing the interception in the 2007 Championship Game that kept the Packers from advancing to a Super Bowl; you can point to the Packers’ meltdown in Seattle in 2014; heck you can look at last year’s championship blowout in Atlanta.

But it’s always about the defense – it’s not about cutting the throat of the opponent with the offense when you have a lead and the ball.

McCarthy plays the percentages when it comes to offense, but it’s always been the inconsistency of the defense that has sunk the Packers in big games.

Take a look at last year’s Divisional Playoff against the Cowboys … the Packers held a huge lead early on before allowing the Cowboys to march down the field and score every time they had the ball in the second half.

When you have that “bend, but don’t break” mentality, the team is not going to win.

If there’s any aspect of the game where the Packers fail to “go for the throat,” it’s on the defensive side of the ball. The balance of the game is not determined by McCarthy’s play-calling … it’s Dom Capers’ unwillingness to throw caution to the wind, to always sit in zones, and to allow teams free reign.

The Packers will never win another championship until they get the right defensive pieces in place and a coordinator who can manipulate those pieces.

Until then, the Packers will continue to play this cat and mouse game with opponents. They will win some of those battles and they will lose some.

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The important thing is that they figure out a way to win the big games.