[Arles]

Pretty good article by Barnwell on the decision to fire McCarthy:

Answering the biggest questions on the Packers firing of Mike McCarthy - 2018 NFL

When it comes to the 2014 NFC Championship Game, though, McCarthy bungled his way into a crushing loss. I wrote about this at the time, when McCarthy kicked two sub-20-yard field goals to start the game, ran the ball on third-and-3 to set up a fourth-and-1 field goal try, and said after the game that he was calling second-half running plays to try to hit a total of 20 rushing attempts in the second half.

The latter is a brutal conflation of cause and effect, and as Mike Tanier noted, the Packers were probably better off setting a target of three second-half kneel-downs if McCarthy was going to misapply math. I won't get into McCarthy's erratic late-game decision-making in the regular season or the time Jordy Nelson had to try to hide the challenge flag McCarthy incorrectly threw, but at the very least, the Packers should have represented the NFC in Super Bowl XLIX.

Here's more specifics about the offensive issues this year:

Those issues reappeared with the 2018 offense, which continued to look antiquated in comparison to teams like the Chiefs and Rams. The Packers simply don't do enough to create natural rubs and easy releases for their receivers, who have to win one-on-one in coverage. Of Rodgers' 21 touchdown passes this season, just two used a pick to create space, and they were both within two yards of the end zone. Two of the touchdowns included stacked receivers, but one didn't create an open receiver and required Rodgers to improvise and create a throwing lane for a score.

The Packers hadn't run a jet sweep through mid-October, and while they used ghost motion in Week 12 to set up an Aaron Jones touchdown run, it felt like when the diner that has been in your town for 75 years suddenly added poké to the menu. Putting Davante Adams in the backfield for one fourth-down play isn't modernizing your offense. It's one play.