Don’t expect to see the Green Bay Packers’ new defensive coordinator straddling the sidelines on game days this year. Mike Pettine plans on staying in the booth, where he says he can maximize the amount of information he can digest.
“I’m an information guy,” Pettine said Tuesday, “so I’ll have a lot of information spread out in front of me. When you’re on the sideline you’re usually limited to what you’re carrying.”
In 2013, Pettine said he decided to call the defense from the sideline based on how offenses were going up-tempo, so he tried to economize the communications process by calling plays directly on the sideline, which would cut out the middleman responsible for relaying the plays to the players.
Aside from that one year in Buffalo, Pettine has spent his remaining time as a coordinator in the booth, including all his time in New York with the Jets.
“I found in Buffalo, when I called (plays) from the sideline…that I felt I was shooting from the hip a little bit too much and regretted it,” Pettine said.
Pettine said he prefers to look at his call sheet and cross out the plays he’s called, which was something he couldn’t do fingering through a laminated packet on the sideline.