The Packers fired assistant head coach Winston Moss on Wednesday after he sent a tweet saying that the team needed to find a new head coach who would “hold #12 and everybody in this building to a #LombardiStandard.”
While Moss’ message was directed at the way the next head coach would relate to Aaron Rodgers, it also had the effect of referencing former Packers head coach Mike McCarthy’s relationship with the quarterback. Rodgers has not been shy about sharing his feelings about the offense or the team’s decisions and there was little public blowback from McCarthy at those moments.
The topic came up when Rodgers spoke to reporters on Wednesday and the quarterback dismissed the notion that McCarthy didn’t hold him or others accountable.
“There’s always been a great deal of accountability under Mike’s program for the last 13 years,” Rodgers said. “There’s consequences for actions that are outside of what’s in the best interest of the team, and there’s never been – I used to always tell him, I said, ‘Hey, if you need to call on somebody in the meeting to let everybody know we’re all on equal playing field, call on me first. Call me out.’ Just so everybody knows nobody is off limits, we’re holding everybody to the same standard. And I feel that’s the way it always was.”
Whatever the level of accountability, it’s pretty likely that McCarthy would still have a job if the Packers weren’t 11-16-1 since the start of last season and improving on that record is going to be the lead thing his replacement will have to account for once they’ve been hired.