Football is a business, owners and general managers and coaches tell you this anytime they make a decision to release or trade players from the team.
But, when the positions at the table suddenly flip, Mike McCarthy was one person who did not appreciate the cold nature of that business.
The former longtime Packers head coach, who was fired last season with four games to play in his 13th season in Green Bay, felt as if he was completely blindsided when he got his pink slip.
“As a head coach, I’ve always tried to stay immune to and stand in front of all the outside noise,” McCarthy told ESPN in his first public comments since the Dec. 2 ax. “That was always my focus with my players. It was always to protect them as much as possible from the drama. I think that’s important. And I stayed true to that to the last day. If we missed the playoffs, I expected change might happen. But the timing surprised me. Actually it stunned me. But time provides the opportunity for reflection and clarity, and that’s where I’m at now. And it’s clear to me now that both sides needed a change.”
Rumors of his departure had been steadingly getting louder for some time, but the Packers’ breaking point was a stunning home loss to the pitiful Cardinals.
“It couldn’t have been handled any worse. Anytime you lose a close game, it’s a difficult time emotionally afterward, but when you lose a home game at Lambeau Field in December, it’s really hard,” the 55-year-old said of the 20-17 defeat. “And that hasn’t happened very often. I walked out of my press conference, and I’m thinking about the game, thinking about how our playoff shot was now minimal. That’s where my head was at. And when I was told [team president] Mark Murphy wanted to see me — and the messenger was cold and the energy was bad. Mark said it was an ugly loss, and it was time to make change. He said something about the offense and the special teams, and he didn’t think it was going to get any better. There was no emotion to it. That was hard.”
“But, hey, I’ll never forget the response after, because I put my phone away [that night]. I woke up, and I could not believe my phone,” he said. “When we won the Super Bowl, I received over 200 texts. That week, I had over 500. I got more than twice as many messages for getting fired than I did when I won the damn Super Bowl. It’s remarkable. They were from current and former players, competitors, owners of other NFL teams, politicians, media members, guys I competed against that I had never even talked to. I was blown away by it, and still am.”
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McCarthy spent 13 seasons with the Packers, leading the team to nine postseason berths, four total NFC Championships and captured Super Bowl XLV over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
