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."
"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:
Come on nonstop. Davis was only in for a few plays every game and the coach is responsible for every play. You really can't compare the two.
IF you remember I said that this team lacked the leadership at midseason or earlier. How is it retrospective?
The players don't have the inspirational leader so they don't play upto the standard they did the year before. It doesn't have to fall on my head for me to acknowlege that the Packers played uninspired football in 2008.
Many who have played on championship teams in ANY sport will tell you that the inspirational leader does make a difference. How tangible was Lombardi's affect on the Packers? How would you measure it? In what statistic would it show up? How about Parcells?
The Great American inventor Thomas Edison once said "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". So what would he have invented without the inspiration? Doesn't perspiration without the inspiration just create a sweaty, stinky body without accomplishing anything?
May be then we can conclude that the difference between the 13-3 season of 2007 and the 6-10 season of 2008 was that 1%. Packers played more inspired football in 2007... For whatever reason... Can we quantify that? Put it into some statistic to trivialize it so that the impiricists can understand it?