I havent felt this way since the Giants playoff game

This was a said game. Icing on the cake for the Packers - showing just how bad we really are with all these stupid mistakes.

I'm not one to call for the coaches head, but I think McCarthy should be on the hot seat if not fired at the end of the season.

I don't want to wait till the end of the season. Get rid of MM NOW.
He has proven he can't motivate this team to get the most out of them.

SEASON OVER! :(

Slim chance to win the division (if Favre goes down).
No chance for a wild card spot.

Rogers is good at putting up numbers, but he's not a winner like Favre or Brady or Manning.
He's a player and a good one at that, but not a true winner that motivates a team.

Give Rodgers a coach who calls a game that caters to his strengths, and we'd see a team that was at least 7-1 right now.
These losses are only tangentially Rodgers' fault.
He's doing his best to implement a fundamentally flawed game plan.
I don't think McCarthy knows what he has in Rodgers or is capable of utilizing him to his best advantage.
And that's being charitable.
A dark part of me is starting to question whether McCarthy wants to use Rodgers to his best advantage.

Hmmm....interesting theory.
It's happen many times, in many different sports, that a superstar returns home to end his career.
McCarthy had an amazing season with Favre before he left.


Favre has his swan song back in Green Bay next year.
This would make good with the fans and make life easy for McCarthy.

Yea, I'm a conspiracy type guy.

Having just watched the entire game again on my DVR (and with good use of the slow-motion feature).

I think the facts speak for themselves. This was a game that -- despite a an interception that gave a short field and the punt block -- was pretty much in control.

In looking at the film what I see is a breakdown at all the wrong times. Early in the fourth quarter we are mixing the run and pass well, moving the ball, and capping a drive with a Rodgers TD run and an 11-point lead. Then we give up a huge return and a TD.

We get the ball back. We start pounding the rock -- with runs by Grant and Green both converting third downs. We get to a 3rd down, Rodgers gets pressured and has to rush a throw to Havner (on the play Jackson and Jennings are on quick hitting routes, but are covered). The throw is a little high, Havner tips it, end of possession.

Then our defense gives up a sustained drive capped by a touchdown wherein Jarrett Bush gets ookied on a slant-corner route by the receiver. Easy touchdown.

We get the ball back and Rodgers gets virtually no time, takes a sack. We put together a few nice plays -- negated by a Colledge holding penalty. Boom. Third and sixteen, nothing downfield (not usually a high percentage conversion with that down and distance).

Four of the six sacks came in the final quarter. The special teams allowed a punt block TD, a long kickoff return, and a punt return into Green Bay territory with 2:07 left in the game.

Plain and simple -- we gave the game away. The playcalling was actually quite balanced. We had established the run throughout the contest. Grant and Green did a nice job. Unfortunately, on the a few of the play action plays we ended up with interceptions. One is on Rodgers -- didn't look off the safety on the backside. The other is split between Rodgers and Jennings. Rodgers probably should not have thrown it into all the coverage, but to his credit it hit Jennings on the hands. Two plays where we force it downfield -- both are intercepted. That's a tough break. It isn't inexcusable playcalling. There were instances where the downfield passing was paramount to our moving the ball -- as in the fourth quarter on a deep comeback route to Driver.

I paid special attention to the second half. If you want to argue that we forced it downfield too much in the first half, all I'll add is that it wasn't the first half that lost the game. It was the final 13 minutes. Eleven point lead in the fourth quarter.

It's shitty to lose to an 0-7 team. But it's understandable when you watch it again. We allowed relatively few yards on defense, but our special teams routinely gave up short fields. Rodgers was sacked at the worst possible times and a 3rd and 6 holding penalty doesn't help either.

A series of mistakes were compounded by bad breaks. It sucks. But the blame goes everywhere. This is a game that was taken right out from underneath us. You can't save your worst football for the final minutes of the game. The momentum shift with the special teams plays is probably the crucial moment of the game.

*edit -- a note I forgot to add is that the illegal contact/defensive holding penalty on Hawk's interception was a pretty bogus call. The contact was made at four yards past the line of scrimmage. More importantly, it wasn't a hold. We could have won the game if we took away a few big gaffes, no doubt. Blown call here doesn't help, though.

Great post, Dave, +1

"Nonstopdrivel"A dark part of me is starting to question whether McCarthy wants to use Rodgers to his best advantage.

Okay, so Darth Vader or the Emperor or whoever whispered in your ear in the middle of the night that McCarthy is a Sith and is trying to convert Rodgers to the dark side of the force?

Can you tell us what this even means? For what reason would McCarthy intentionally fail to use Rodgers to the best of his ability? What would be in it for McCarthy? What is giving you this feeling other than the aforementioned nighttime bedroom visitations by fictional characters?

I explained my thought process in a different thread.
Mike McCarthy drafted Alex Smith, who played a spread offense in college, over Aaron Rodgers, who played -- and excelled in -- a pro-style offense in college.
Rodgers' strengths are clearly in the pro-style offense, under center, yet McCarthy stubbornly has him in the shotgun on the majority of his plays.
Why?
Why does McCarthy persist in imposing a spread-style system on this offense instead of exploiting the assets we have that are geared for a West-Coast Offense?
I'm not saying he's malicious, but a cynic could wonder.
Maybe malice is giving him too much credit.
Maybe he's just blind.