Not that there wasn't logic to it all. As the years grinded on, McCarthy tried to take on more of a CEO-like approach with the team. He would routinely deny outside interview opportunities for assistants if they were under contract, so this was his way of giving them more responsibility, to prep them for an eventual promotion elsewhere. Back issues are common amongst all football coaches. And while McCarthy likely wasn't getting a massage every time he let an assistant run a meeting, the optics were bad. In stepping back, he came across as distant and lost respect from players.
"If you're not a part of meetings, and then you're trying to be pissed about execution, nobody's going to really respect you," says one former front-office member from the McCarthy-Rodgers era. "They're going to look at you like, 'Where have you been all week?' It sounded like he was really just chilling."
Put yourself in Rodgers' shoes—in the shoes of a player who eats, sleeps, breathes the sport. As some sources put it, "How do you think he felt?" Of course he'd seize control.
Rodgers may not be a Tom Brady-like locker room presence, but to one former offensive teammate, he's still "by far the best quarterback, skills-wise, in the history of the NFL." And it was on McCarthy to manage that, provide leadership and make his quarterback's life as stress-free as possible. Do everything in his power to let that talent shine.
"His No. 1 job, and Mike always missed this point, is to manage Aaron," the former teammate says. "That's your driver. That's your engine. Aaron's your engine for the whole team. Whether you want to or don't want to, you have to make sure that guy's happy. At the end of the day—and it doesn't sound like a fun job—if he's happy, you're winning.
"Your job isn't to go out there and throw and catch passes. Your job is to manage people."
And if Rodgers isn't Brady as a leader, McCarthy sure as hell never managed like
Bill Belichick. Whereas Belichick despises the limelight and "removes himself" every way he can, this player says McCarthy loved anointing himself as a quarterback guru. The coach often bragged to players about his time with Joe Montana...in
Kansas City.
"He tried to bill himself as this quarterback master," the player says. "It was like, 'Buddy, I just want to let you know, Joe Montana did a lot more before he was in Kansas City.'"
McCarthy felt he was the one who created this monster of an offense. A personnel man adds: "That was McCarthy's big mistake. He wanted to be The Guy. He wanted to be The Reason. And he wasn't that good."
It didn't help that McCarthy also was rotating his assistants between positions annually. He wanted them to gain more experience, but as Grant points out, this didn't necessarily help the players. Many times, they felt as though they knew more about their position than their own coach.
Many agree McCarthy could have saved himself if he had swallowed his pride and hired a bright offensive mind to challenge Rodgers. One beam of hope emerged in Alex Van Pelt, who coached running backs in 2012 and 2013 before moving over to quarterbacks in 2014. However, team sources say McCarthy felt threatened by Van Pelt, who became close to Rodgers. The Packers opted not to retain Van Pelt when his contract expired after the 2017 season, which
didn't sit well with Rodgers.
Which cut that grudge deeper.
And the rest of the team? There were mixed opinions on McCarthy.
Some interpreted his laissez-faire style differently. It was refreshing. From backups like Jayrone Elliott ("I have nothing but respect for him.") to starters like Grant ("Mike's a great coach. I'm surprised he's not coaching right now."), again and again they describe him as a player's coach. But even one defensive starter who begins a conversation by praising McCarthy soon admits the culture he instilled created a soft team.
When Thompson hired McCarthy, he called him "
Pittsburgh macho." And yet the coach rarely matched his no-bull rhetoric in press conferences with no-bull action. One personnel man calls him "a fake tough guy." McCarthy rarely fined or benched or sent messages to players and paid the price almost every season—never more so than in the game, the moment, that'll define him in the eyes of many Packers fans. Multiple sources from the team say
McCarthy should have cut inept backup tight end Brandon Bostick months before the NFC title game in 2015. Instead, he was on the field for a late
Seahawks onside kick attempt, and instead of blocking his man, he went for the catch. The ball
bounced off his helmet, and Green Bay collapsed.
Elaine Thompson/Associated Press
The Packers also rarely hit in training camp, and it angered defensive players "every day" how little interest McCarthy showed in them. He was never around their drills, the former starter says, and it was always the
defense sprinting to the offense's side of the field for team drills.
"What guys did on defense did not matter," he says. "This is an offensive-minded team, and our quarterback is expected to bail us out. As defenders, we used to always talk about it. It's like, 'We whupped their ass today in camp. Are they going to finally run to us? Respect us?'"
The answer was a resounding "No," and this player says the result was a "soft mindset" that'd constantly rear its ugly head.
When Rodgers missed seven games in 2013 and nine games in 2017, the player remembers teammates outright quitting.
"That's when the real coaching, the real identity, the real character came out of everybody," he says. "I saw that guys give up when we don't have a star quarterback. I see guys aren't going to give it all when their backs are against the wall."
Even when they built a 19-7 lead in the NFC title game in 2015, even as they bruised and bloodied the most physical team in the NFL for 56 minutes, it was only a matter of time before their inner softness was exposed. McCarthy caved, the defense caved, and it was not by accident.
"That Seahawks game defined our team right there," he says. "We didn't have any finishers."
Moments after that 28-22 loss, Rodgers let his frustrations show. He criticized the team's lack of aggressiveness. But he didn't blow up directly at McCarthy, that anyone interviewed saw. Quiet tension defined this relationship. One player who heard about McCarthy's massages even wonders aloud if Rodgers started that rumor and tried spreading it to anybody that'd listen. Neither Rodgers nor McCarthy could be reached to comment on this story, but nobody B/R spoke to recalled a scornful, over-the-top confrontation between the two when such a reckoning was needed.
If Rodgers has a problem, he rarely chooses to address it directly.
One person, who used to be close to the quarterback but has since been cut out of his life, describes Rodgers as forever "conflict-averse." As passive-aggressive to the extreme. As someone who'd rather stuff problems deep, deep down inside of him and pretend there's no issue rather than communicate those issues and strengthen relationships like this one with his coach.
Rodgers usually chose midgame tantrums over constructive conversations.
"I guarantee you, he never—maybe once or twice—but mostly never, ever addressed any of those things with Mike," this person says. "Which means all it did was fester and poison it."
So fester, it did. And fester. And fester.
So, no, McCarthy is not the only one to blame.
It was 2012, and the Packers were hosting the 49ers when, mid-timeout, cornerback Carlos Rogers playfully asked Jennings why he was running so many short routes.
"You know how it is," Jennings told him. "Contract year."
That's when Rodgers stepped in to say, per Jennings, "You guys should get him at the end of the year."
Come again?
Jennings walked back to the huddle speechless.
"I don't think he realizes what he said and the impact that it had," Jennings says. "Had the shoe been on the other foot and I said, 'Hey, man, I should come and play with your quarterback,' he would've been so offended by that. But when it comes out of his mouth—and we all know there's truth behind jokes—for him to say that and just act as though everything was the same? It just wasn't."
The next day, Jennings told his position coach, Edgar Bennett, he knew this was his last year in Green Bay. "That was my headspace," he admits.
He had been Rodgers' No. 1 receiver for four seasons running, racking up 4,619 receiving yards and 34 touchdowns from 2008-11. He was on the receiving end of Rodgers' iconic Super Bowl
thread of the needle. He had opened his family's front door to Rodgers for Thanksgiving, for any day he'd ever want, because he knew his quarterback was alone in a new city.
Lenny Ignelzi/Associated Press
