One of the most underrated aspects of Big Mac as a head coach is his ability to get his teams to play at a high level despite injuries or having to win playoff games on the road.
Count me as one of the fans who thought on opening night we were screwed when we played so bad against Tampa, lost our starting QB for weeks, and after losing our All Pro LT for almost the whole season. What Mike McCarthy has done so far in managing those injuries as well as having a rookie LT play very well has been remarkable.
Contrast all this against Jason Garrett, who couldn’t even manage losing a single starter on the OL.
McCarthy still needs to win multiple playoff games this season to make this story complete. But he has done this before. His 2010 packers team won a Lombardi by overcoming a ton of adversity.
- The 2010 packers placed a whopping 15 players on injured reserve during that season, including 9 players who started at least one game. They had the most starters injured that year and still won the SB!
- That 2010 packers team became the first 6th seed from the NFC to win a Super Bowl.
- They also became the first NFC team to win the SB by winning 3 straight road playoff games.
I’m not counting any chickens here before they’ve hatched. This team still has a lot in front of it. This team NEEDS to win multiple playoff games to be better than any of the pretenders we’ve seen around here for far too long. This team will probably have to win a bunch of road playoff games. (We haven’t won a road playoff game since 1992!)
But here’s the hope we should have- Mike McCarthy has done this before.
