Hindsight tells me we didn't have an inspirational leader this year.

Nobody needed hindsight to tell them that Reggie White and Brett Favre were inspirational leaders.

Reggie White came to this team as an established veteran. That's a totally different situation. No one knew Brett Favre was an "inspirational leader" when he was a backup in Green Bay. We knew that later from the results he gave us on the field.

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You're right nonstop.
I don't think anyone would or should expect a 1st year starter or rookie to come in and be an inspirational leader.
That does take time to develop.

True. But in a situation like that, it's the Coach's job to motivate. And I think that's something MM failed to do in '08.

So this one is on MM 's shoulders, not Aaron's.

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I agree to a certain extent, but I also believe that if you're being paid millions of dollars to play a game, yet you can't muster enough intrinsic motivation to give it your best effort, you need to get out of the game as soon as possible.

I think "inspiration" is as overrated as "intangibles." It's a facile way to explain success or failure without having to actually analyze the situation. I don't believe inspiration alone can overcome all odds anymore than I believe "love is all you need" to have a good marriage. In both cases, what you really need is a hefty measure of damn hard work.

As for me, I have enough respect for the players and staff on this team to believe that they went out on the field week after week and gave it their best against some pretty steep odds (tough schedule, injuries, etc.), and unfortunately, their best just didn't happen to be good enough this season. Much as I'd like to see them be Number One every single year, I'm rational enough to understand and accept that it won't always happen.

Of course, I'm also blindly optimistic enough to assume that it will happen next year.

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I don't really agree with this is on McCarthy. His job is to prepare the team and maintain a leadership role in keeping control of his players and the locker room which he did a good job of.

The players need to BELIEVE in their coach. They need to know where he's coming from by being a good comunicator, he's consistant, and, fair, and the players will play hard until it's over for him.

The game time motivation and pump needs to come from the leaders on the team. This is not unlike a soldier fighting next to his buddies. He may very well respect and will listen to his CO but he's fighting for the guys next to him in the fox holes.

I agree that it should not have been Arod's place but the kind of motivation your looking for doesn't come from McCarthy either. It was simply lacking. It's not a role, however, the HC can take. It's just not. There needs to be a high-character veteran the players look up to on both sides of the ball that takes command of the troops on the field.

This can be by antics, theatrics, or example, but make no doubt it comes from a PLAYER.

McCarthy makes the plan and gets them ready and that leader makes sure it's executed on the field with authority. Sure, McCarthy can do fist pumps and high fives and pats on the butt. He can scream and hollar and point his finger too. Big difference between that and that special guy on the field that gets every drop of energy out of his players.

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Well, take Mike Ditka for example. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but the guy knew how to motivate. He always got 100% from his players, all the time.

I see both of your points, but I'm just saying that a strong personality rubs off, and that's the brilliance of a charismatic coach. I think MM wasn't the same guy he was in '07.

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That's purely retrospective thinking and leads to a post hoc fallacy: "The team was good in 2007, so Mike McCarthy must have been a good coach in 2007. The team wasn't good in 2008, so Mike McCarthy must have changed." It is a simplistic non-analysis that ignores all the other factors that contributed to the poor results of 2008.

Using such a unifactorial approach, you could make just as valid an argument blaming the season on the long snapper: "The team went 13-3 in 2007 with Rob Davis as the long snapper, but only 6-10 without him. Obviously, it's all the long snapper's fault."

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May well be a valid point, but here is a question I have: was it reasonable to expect MM to be the same guy that he was in 07?

After the 07 season, MM had some big changes in his life.

- Got married
- Had a new family
- Had a new daughter

Is it reasonable to expect that MM would change, even if unintentionally, as a person (and those changes occurred in MM the coach too).
MM had drastically different circumstances to deal with this year than compared to last year.


Edit - for the record I think along the lines of NSD, it's so easy to think the coach has changed when the (same) things he did before are no longer being executed as well as as they were in the past.

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You're right in theory, AADP, but a head coach would be on some slippery ground if he tried to blame a bad season on the fact he got married and had a baby. Hell, I would can his ass if he came up with a lame excuse like that! 😃

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