His holder WAS Frost most of the year, for what it's worth.

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I heard that was part of the reason Frost was kept around longer than he should have been. Was to give Flynn and Crosby time to gel.

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Completely agree, well said.

Actually, technically last season wasn't even a year ago, it was 10-11 months ago. Less than a year; the coaches and GMs haven't had huge amounts of time to change philosophies, or have huge recessions on their capability of being good coaches.

Last year we caught a lot of teams at great times, Giants and Chargers for example. Giants were a complete mess, and the Chargers were not on the same page and trying to get adjusted to a new HC.

Then you had meetings against teams like the Panthers, who were hurt by injuries and without key players (like their starting QBs).

Then you had some breaks go your way, like winning the OT toss at Denver and having first possession. This allowed the TD, and ended the game.

Simply put, this team is no where near as bad as it's record indicates. I still think this team is a lot closer to the 13-3 team of last year than 5-10 team this year. Granted 13 wins might be pushing it considering the loss of KGB and Corey Williams, but those guys were not worth 7 wins.

(I've left out Favre on purpose... that's a whole bigger issue to tackle, and quite frankly I don't think the drop off from Favre to Rodgers has been worth 7 wins either).

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Unfortunately, McCarthy does not think the lack of focus or discipline is a problem. (Yes he actually said that.) "That's just the way we play. " is another gem from McCarthy when asked about the penalties.

I got bashed by several members here earlier in the season when they claimed, just because he doesn't publicly acknowledge penalties are a problem, doesn't mean his is not taking steps to correct them.

Well, here we are in week 17, still the dumbest, most undisciplined team in the NFL. Perhaps he actually thinks they are not a problem. Sure looks that way to me.

This has always bugged me, also. I can't help but believe that what he says in those press conferences is at least a partial reflection of his "philosophy". I also think that with our man-press coverage, coupled with some "reputations" established by some of our players throughout the league...well, that we get more than our fair share of penalties. I keep thinking back about Ahmad Carroll, and how it seemed to get to the point that as soon as he was lined up gainst a receiver the ref would put his hand on his hankie. I think it's a hard thing to overcome that kind of reputation, and announcing publicly that it isn't a problem seems like it would make it more of a problem, as contrasted to being part of any solution. I'm a strong supporter of MM, but there are a couple of things he does and/or does not do that tick me off. This is definitely one of them.

Agreed.

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The defensive penalties this year aren't that bad. I don't know the exact number but we are around 15-16 for that. It's the offensive penalties that we are leading in.

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You'll take the defensive back penalties because they get away with it most of the time. Last year I believe we had the most penalties from our DBacks. The penalties on offense and on every single good return we get are what is frustrating. I don't think it's a coaching problem I think it is more of a desperation by the players problem. They want to win so bad and make big plays so bad that they hold and clip to open up the field.

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I don't really get the whole "they always get away with it" deal about our defensive backs. I have seen very few no-calls for PI on us this year. Actually I've seen more of other teams DBs getting away with it on our receivers. I think some guy on sports center must have mentioned our DBs being too aggressive at some point and people ran with it like it was a 100% certainty.

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I've heard him say a number of times that he's ok with the aggressive cover penalties etc. but finds the false start, etc. penalties unacceptable.

Anyway, for a coach to conclude that the problem is focus or discipline is a cop-out, in my opinion. What do you do to address a problem as general as "focus"? Feed the players ginkgo biloba? They all know their jobs.

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