Four months after being fired as the Green Bay Packers’ head coach, Mike McCarthy finally decided to speak about the circumstances surrounding his exit from the franchise. During a recent interview with ESPN‘s Rob Demovsky McCarthy said that he was “stunned” with the timing of Green Bay’s decision and that his firing “couldn’t have been handled any worse.”
“If we missed the playoffs, I expected change might happen,” – said McCarthy. “But the timing surprised me. Actually it stunned me. It couldn’t have been handled any worse.”
Green Bay decided to fire Mike McCarthy following a shocking home loss to Arizona Cardinals December 13th which meant that the team will miss the playoffs for the second year in a row. This marked the first time Packers fired their coach in the middle of the season in the previous six decades.
“It couldn’t have been handled any worse,” – McCarthy added. “Anytime you lose a close game, it’s a difficult time emotionally afterwards, but when you lose a home game at Lambeau Field in December, it’s really hard. And that hasn’t happened very often. I walked out of my press conference, and I’m thinking about the game, thinking about how our playoff shot was now minimal. That’s where my head was at. And when I was told Mark Murphy wanted to see me — and the messenger was cold and the energy was bad. Mark said it was an ugly loss, and it was time to make change. He said something about the offense and the special teams, and he didn’t think it was going to get any better. There was no emotion to it. That was hard.”
McCarthy spent almost 13h seasons as Green Bay Packers’ head coach and left the organization with 125–77–2 record. During his time with the franchise, he managed to lead the team to one Super Bowl ring and three NFC Championship Game appearances.
