Take me back to the 70s and 80s!

TW

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Every time they hired a new head coach in Green Bay, back in the 70s and 80s, we referred to it as a 4 year plan for defeat. Even coaches we liked as players, failed miserably on the sideline. Forrest Gregg came in - a savior, look what he'd done in Cincy - and said; "I'm gonna turn this program around.

The Packers were 8-8 the year before and by cracky, he got it right. They went 8-8! In fact, that's what they did for what???? 3 years? Then they got their butts handed to them, and Gregg was gone. I know Starr was there longer. It was just a figure of speech to anyone who wants to be a stats Nazi.

The problem starts in the front office. Get back to a hierarchy that works. A chain of command, not a mish-mosh of people reporting to one person. That just doesn't work. There is no accountability this way. Until all this straightens out, don't expect any miracles on the field, because nobody will be able to show they have the authority to make players toe the line, and that begins with Rodgers, who has developed into a spoiled brat who needs his arse paddled by a coach who can teach him respect.
 
Can't quite nail down the premise. You're (correctly) knocking the Gory Years coaches but seem to be matching that to the current management setup. Don't remember either way, but wasn't the problem not organizational structure but bad coaches coaching bad players? Given the heartburn in another thread, want to be clear - I'm curious, not aggressive.
 
Can't quite nail down the premise. You're (correctly) knocking the Gory Years coaches but seem to be matching that to the current management setup. Don't remember either way, but wasn't the problem not organizational structure but bad coaches coaching bad players? Given the heartburn in another thread, want to be clear - I'm curious, not aggressive.

I just pulled this up. Packers 70s & 80s. It will tell a little of what was happening in the front office, and how it was unsettling. They had football decisions made by non-football people, and people too close to the Packer family to use sound judgment in how they should proceed. Until the BOD brought in Bob Harlan from outside, and an extremely knowledgeable football man, and gave him total control of the football operations, they were toast. Harlan brought in Wolf, who was also knowledgeable, and they went after the best coach they could find out there, that would have a vision for the future, even if it meant tearing down everything they had, and rebuilding it in an image that would work. They needed people like this, to "think outside the box," when it came to Packer history.

When they started putting it together, and rebuilt everything inside the operation with people capable of doing jobs instead of "old buddies from the past" inside the Packer family, they moved forward. Then they embraced the past, by honoring those who had done so much for the Packers in the past. They knew you honored the history, not necessarily the leadership abilities of a guy on the sidelines.

What we've seen happening, with McCarthy, is a bond between his friends from the past, not necessarily because of their football acumen. That's obvious when you see a guy like Zook even having a coaching job. A strong GM would have stepped in, and insured that the people picked for jobs were the best available, not old cronies.

I see a little of that coming down the road right now. If Murphy does hire Fitzgerald, we're talking about the buddy system being in full swing again. We'd also be talking about Fitz bringing in a lot of guys he knows, and those who Murphy would find extremely acceptable. None of it would necessarily mean, and probably wouldn't mean, an overhaul that would rebuild the Packers like happened when Harlan was hired.

Now, going back to the 70s and 80s, most of us realized that the Executive BOD for the Packers were making the decisions. Coaches were hired as GM and coach most of the time, so the BOD could control the football operations instead of making it independent, through someone with football savvy. They were always in control. Dominic Olejniczak was President into the early 80s, and had been for 24 or 25 years. The only time he relinquished any power was to Lombardi, and that was only because it's what Lombardi demanded, and did so, all the way through when he "appointed" Phil Bengtsen his replacement. After that, Dominic took charge again, and controlled it all. The reason Dominic gave Lombardi so much control was because he was the guy that brought Lombardi in, to save the franchise. When Dominic retired, Judge Parins took over. Parins like, Dom, were Packer fans, not really football knowledgeable. The team followed the same path of losing on the field, but both men did a lot to help add on to the stadium, and keep the franchise afloat. If only they had turned football operations over to knowledgeable people, but didn't.

When Harlan was hired, he became the man running all football operations, and he had the skill and knowledge of dealing with it, and knew how to go about building a football knowledgeable group that would operate under a true chain of command. That's gone now, replaced by the same disjointed leadership we saw with Dom and the Judge.

We need a Bob Harlan type President, who has no trouble hiring a GM, letting him do his job, and supporting his effort in getting the best football minds available into Green Bay, even if it means kicking some of the sacred cows we have lurking around the team out. Not once did we hear about Harlan interfering with the Packers, after he hired Wolf to be the GM. We didn't see him circumventing Wolf to go to Holmgren either. We'll see it now, all the time, if Murphy keeps the chain of command like it is now. He needs to either trust Gutey to make good choices, and let him do it, or replace him with someone he trusts. He also needs to take Ball out of the equation. He's the bean counter, not a guy who should be evaluating talent. They can mesh money and talent together after they determine needs, and separate from the football operation itself.
 
Much of what you say is true TW, but what we see from the Packers right now is not unprecedented even during the Harlan years. Look what Harlan did when Wolf called it quits - caved in to his own principles and let a clearly too inexperienced Sherman run the whole show for years. He essentially took his own principles and chucked them in the lake for convenience sake. Then he waited until Sherman totally messed things up before fixing it. Not his strongest leadership moment. Right now might be that moment for Murphy.

As for cronyism with coach hiring - hell, that happens all the time. Look at Holmgren. He dragged his buddies along when he came to GB. The difference is that Holmgren's guys mostly got it done, MM's guys mostly didn't. To date, the coaching problems might actually be because of the "Harlan" command structure. TT was in total control of the operation until last winter. He failed to hold MM accountable for his coaching hires and the constant failures of certain areas of the team. Murphy stayed out of football operations and let TT run the show.

Of course what Murphy should have done was dumped TT a couple of years earlier but even that was complicated. As recently as 2014 TT had assembled a team that should have gone to the Super Bowl had it not been for multiple individual failures in the final minutes of the NFCCG. That probably, wrongly, bought TT a couple more years and TT was clearly not capable anymore. Murphy over-reacted to TT's incapacity (for probably a couple of years) and felt like he needed to have more direct reporting by multiple operational people to avoid a similar situation. I suspect in a few years this will all change. Hopefully it doesn't totally screw things up in the meantime.
 
Much of what you say is true TW, but what we see from the Packers right now is not unprecedented even during the Harlan years. Look what Harlan did when Wolf called it quits - caved in to his own principles and let a clearly too inexperienced Sherman run the whole show for years. He essentially took his own principles and chucked them in the lake for convenience sake. Then he waited until Sherman totally messed things up before fixing it. Not his strongest leadership moment. Right now might be that moment for Murphy.

You're absolutely right. This is exactly what Harlan did. There's always a problem when you hire a head coach then go out and hire a GM. In a screwed up way, that's a lot like what happened with McCarthy, and Gutey. McCarthy felt he was higher in the pecking order than Gutey, I'd guess, so having him leap frog him to GM, over him? Not happening in his mind, I'd guess. Hoping for the best, Murphy probably caved just like Harlan did, and down the tubes it went. Now we're here, where we are.

I do agree that coaches hire guys they can relate to, but you need to hire top coaches, even if it means passing on a guy who you like more. If the guys you know are at or near the tops in their respective disciplines, it can work out well. As time goes on, those guys who are that good move on to other jobs, with more money. You need to replace them, and often you need to look outside your circle of friends to maintain the level of coaching needed.

In layman's terms, when you start with Stock, who was a horrible ST coach, Slocum, who learned to be inadequate from Stock, and Zook, who goes back a long way with McCarthy, and was the worst of the lot - it proves your point on the buddy system.
 
I know a lot of people don't like Murphy, but he has multiple times more football knowledge than Dom Olejniczak and Judge Parins did. For those who don't remember in the 70's and 80's they made all of the decisions and ran the team into the ground. I know we have some issues . . . but in my opinion we're not back to being like those years . . yet.
 
I know a lot of people don't like Murphy, but he has multiple times more football knowledge than Dom Olejniczak and Judge Parins did. For those who don't remember in the 70's and 80's they made all of the decisions and ran the team into the ground. I know we have some issues . . . but in my opinion we're not back to being like those years . . yet.
Agree and also the league is different. Cap is different, business model is different. For multiple reasons you can’t compare this to 70’s & 80’s
 
As for cronyism with coach hiring - hell, that happens all the time. Look at Holmgren. He dragged his buddies along when he came to GB. The difference is that Holmgren's guys mostly got it done, MM's guys mostly didn't.

That's a huge difference. One that cannot be just simply dismissed as luck. MM hired and kept under achievers. In no way was he looking for the next best thing at any positional coaching post.
 
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