Mike McCarthy deserves blame for Packers’ slow starts
The Green Bay Packers started slowly again in Week 5, and the blame falls on head coach Mike McCarthy.
Take away last week’s win against the Bills, and the Green Bay Packers have been outscored by their opponents 56-27 in the first half this season.
In three of Green Bay’s five games — versus Chicago, at Washington and at Detroit — they have made slow starts. They are lucky to be 1-2 in those games. That falls on head coach Mike McCarthy.
The Packers made an awful start in Sunday’s loss to the Lions.
Everything went wrong. A Lions punt hit Kevin King, giving possession back to Detroit on the Packers’ one-yard line.
Mason Crosby missed three first-half field goals.
The defense put together another solid game, but they weren’t helped out by Green Bay’s offense or special teams.
This falls on Mike McCarthy. Yet again Green Bay turned up to a game and didn’t look ready to play. Aaron Rodgers and the offense are then forced to play catchup in the second half, making the offense one-dimensional and making it difficult to win.
Rewind to Week 1.
The Chicago Bears threw everything at the Packers, and outplayed them in every phase of the game in the opening two quarters.
Green Bay couldn’t get into any kind of rhythm on offense and couldn’t get a stop on defense. The Packers entered halftime down 17-0. At home. In the season opener.
If not for Aaron Rodgers’ excellent second-half performance, the Packers would’ve started the year 0-1.
Five games in, they are 2-2-1. But they could easily be 1-4, had the Bears held on and the Vikings converted a game-winning 35-yard field goal in overtime.
Injuries played a part against the Lions. The Packers were without Randall Cobb and Geronimo Allison in Sunday’s loss to the Lions, but that’s no excuse. They drafted three wide receivers for this exact reason. And they had both Cobb and Allison two weeks ago at Washington.
McCarthy is responsible for getting his team ready to play. In three of the Packers’ first five games, that hasn’t been the case.
Not so long ago this team rarely finished their first drive without seven points. So far this season, they have scored zero points on their opening drives. Zero.
Yet again, Green Bay started slowly and left it too little, too late in the second half.
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It falls on McCarthy, and he needs to fix the problem if his team are going to compete in the NFC this season.