As the ball dropped over Times Square ushering in the new year, the memories of 2018 couldn’t be swept away fast enough for the Green Bay Packers, whose thumbnail retrospective of the past year is also a dropped ball.
After completing their second consecutive losing season — the first such repeat since 1990-91 — the wind of change is howling through Lombardi Avenue, and a major cleaning of house is on tap.
In a normal year in Green Bay, the “next man up” in January is the player on the depth chart replacing an injured starter in the playoff game. Today, it refers to the procession of candidates applying for the chance to take the reins and turn the Packer ship around — or shoulder the blame if things don’t work out.
Once the Packers find their permanent replacement for fired coach Mike McCarthy, then the other personnel blocks will fall and the picture for 2019 will become a little more in focus.
Interim coach Joe Philbin is among the candidates being considered. Philbin, last seen on the sidelines at Lambeau getting clobbered by Detroit, might boost the argument for keeping him on by pointing to Doug Marrone — the one from 2017, that is. Not this year’s Doug Marrone.
Marrone was the offensive line coach for Jacksonville when he was promoted to interim head coach late in the 2016 season. The Jaguars went 1-1 under Marrone — the same .500 winning percentage that Philbin brings to the interview table — but the next year, in his first full year as the team’s head coach, they finished 13-3 and advanced to the AFC championship game.
The Jaguars’ front office celebrated its keen perception in retaining a winner and extended Marrone’s contract through 2021. Somewhere around Week 5 of this season, Marrone became a lousy coach. The Jaguars lost seven in a row and, faster than you can say “buyer’s remorse,” they were out of the playoffs by Thanksgiving.
Should the Packers decide to stick with Philbin, they will want to structure his contract differently from the one that Marrone signed as head coach at Buffalo, where an opt-out clause allowed him to quit in 2014 and still collect his full 2015 salary.
Packers president and CEO Mark Murphy has expressed an interest in Northwestern University coach Pat Fitzgerald. Murphy was athletic director at Northwestern in 2006, and hired Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald is young, energetic and successful — the type that the Packers seem likely to go with over an established “re-tread” who’s been through the revolving door of NFL coaches. To that end, the Packers have already interviewed former coaches Jim Caldwell and Chuck Pagano.
Fitzgerald, who has rebuffed earlier approaches to become an NFL coach, has said that he’s not going anywhere. He may interview with the Packers as a courtesy to Murphy but isn’t likely to leave the catbird seat in Evanston, Ill.
Some coaching success at the college level can translate to success in the NFL (Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer, Pete Carroll), while some coaches have fared better in the pros than in college (Bill Walsh, Tom Coughlin, Dennis Green). Others have made the leap from college to pro and then gone back (Nick Saban, Steve Spurrier, Lou Holtz).
Jim Harbaugh, who Murphy is said to be interested in, has had success at the pro level; his teams went 44-19-1 in four years at San Francisco before he returned to coach at his alma mater Michigan.
Whomever the Packers ultimately hire — they have also shown interest in New England assistants Josh McDaniels and Brian Flores — will have to be a good “fit” for the team, meaning he will have to get a nod of approval from quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
If one player’s veto power over another man’s job seems skewed, consider that it’s just a quarterback thing. After being drafted No. 1 overall by the Baltimore Colts and San Diego Chargers in 1983 and 2004, respectively, John Elway and Eli Manning told entire cities to take a hike.