Packers coach Mike McCarthy was asked at the Scouting Combine if his team has grown soft. He didn’t care for the suggestion.
“To me, we’re a physical, tough football team,” McCarthy said, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I totally disagree. I don’t know how you can put the tape on and say the Green Bay Packers aren’t physical.”
McCarthy was asked what it says that the Packers are more of a passing team than a running team offensively, and that they’ve struggled at times to stop the run defensively. McCarthy answered that it doesn’t say anything different about his team now than two years ago, when they won the Super Bowl.
“How do we play any different from the approach, the identity today that we did in 2010?” he said. “How do you swing that far? You don’t go from here to here.”
Allowing 579 yards and 45 points in a postseason loss to the 49ers has raised questions about the Packers’ defense, and McCarthy acknowledged that they have work to do. But he won’t accept that they’re not tough enough.