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McCarthy missing details

GREEN BAY — There were any number of absolutes in the Green Bay Packers’ 2008 season.

They finished 6-10. They won only two of 10 games outside the NFC North. They lost four games at home. They ranked 25th in the NFL in sacks. They lost seven times when they were either ahead or tied with less than 4 minutes left in regulation.

These are things about the Packers’ season that are undeniable.

In assessing the team’s performance in his year-ending news conference Wednesday, coach Mike McCarthy didn’t dispute the facts. He lamented the way his team lost too many games in the fourth quarter, didn’t run the ball as productively as it wanted, didn’t rush the passer well enough and didn’t get the continuity it would have liked in the offensive line.

McCarthy wasn’t clear, however, on exactly why things went wrong with this team and whether drastic changes need to be made. When reporters questioned him about various aspects of the team, he continually used the term “convenient”—as in “a convenient excuse”—when something was singled out for the 6-10 season.

He clearly wasn’t going to be pinned down on a reason or two for the final outcome:

On whether the team had a void in leadership because of its young roster: “I think we have exceptional leadership by example, and that was confirmed. Now, do we have the guy that’s out there screaming and yelling and so forth? Maybe we don’t. Is that why you’re winning games, or why you’re not winning games? Those are all convenient things, and I think those are the things you’ve got to watch, because when you lose, everything is wrong.

”I stood up here and everything was right, and I knew it wasn’t all right last year. That’s why you take the time to go through all the evaluations, you take the time to talk to everybody.“

On whether defensive coordinator Bob Sanders’ scheme doesn’t work: ‘’When things go wrong I think it’s convenient to say, ’They play so much match (man-to-man) coverage that you can’t win with that defense.’ There are always different variations, different personnel groups. We don’t line up in just one personnel group. You have to take a look at everything involved.“

On whether cornerback Charles Woodson was right that the team needs to be active in free agency this off-season: ”I think that’s a convenient opinion. I talked to Charles and all the other veterans about a number of different things. There’s not just one thing we need to do, and we’ll look at all those things. Like I said, everybody has a right to their opinion. I think it’s convenient to attack the youth of our team. I’m fine with our football team. I like our football team.“

On whether Sanders should have blitzed more when it became apparent there was no pass rush: ”That’s really an ongoing conversation during the year. There are a number of factors that are involved in that. It would be convenient to sit here and say, ’OK, we didn’t have any pass rush. We didn’t use enough pressure.’ Those are the type of blanket statements that I think it’s important that you go through the evaluation process, and that’s what we’ll continue to do.“

Throughout the news conference he made it clear he and general manager Ted Thompson are not in panic mode over this season.

He talked about the role injuries played in the season, the expected growth next season of Thompson’s three most recent draft classes and the high expectations he has for offensive linemen such as Daryn Colledge and Jason Spitz. He stated unequivocally that he thought the Packers made the right decision in sticking with Aaron Rodgers as the team’s quarterback.

After choosing not to express considerable concern about the makeup of his team and the ability of it to bounce back next year, he was asked whether he thought people in the organization understood what it means to go 6-10 after having just one losing season in the 16 previous seasons.

”I don’t think anybody in the Green Bay Packers organization is flippant about what just happened here,“ McCarthy said. ”I’m the head coach. I was given an opportunity to coach a group of men and we won six games. I clearly understand the responsibilities in the great organization I’m working at.

“It is not acceptable. I’m not satisfied. There are reasons why we are here. We need to correct them as we move forward, and that’s the facts. I’m not going to comment on past seasons and so forth, but that’s the reality of where we are. We need to do a better job.”

McCarthy’s task in the next week will be to evaluate his assistant coaches, then his players. He met separately Wednesday with his three coordinators: Sanders, Joe Philbin (offense) and Mike Stock (special teams).

No announcement was made on whether any of them would be dismissed. McCarthy said before the meetings that he was at the beginning of his evaluation process and it was too early to say whether any changes would be made.

He said no one would get the benefit of the doubt that this was just an off year.

“I don’t look at it that way,” he said. “The evaluation isn’t something where you just wait until the season is over and let’s get together one time and talk about it and we’ll talk again next year. I think you look at everything. We have three years together as a football team, a number of players and coaches.

”We’ll look at all the different factors and we’ll evaluate and get ready to set our plan for next year.“

McCarthy said figuring out what needs to be fixed will be an important part of the evaluation process. He wants to learn from what happened and use it to make sure it never happens again.

”We don’t have everything figured out,“ McCarthy said. ”There are some things that we’ve done well. We’ve had some players that had good seasons. They need to play better too. I need to coach better. We need to do a better job all the way through. That’s why it is important to break it down all the way to zero and start over again.

“If you ever get into the mode of, ’Hey, we did this right last year. We’re OK there.’ That’s not going to work, not in this league, because you’re either improving or you’re going backwards. And we took a step backwards in some areas.”