Coaching Staff Profile, Balance

In the final installment of my coaching analysis, I will examine the special teams, strength and conditioning, and head coaches. As with everything, it is appropriate to start at the top. Head Coach Mike McCarthy did not have his best season in 2008, as I previously outlined on this link. Mistakes like those are why, despite the mountain he had to climb with so many reserves playing on defense and a quarterback in his first year starting, I have to issue him a D+ for 2008. However, by all rights he should have been the 2007 Coach of the Year: Green Bay went from 8-8 to 13-3 with the youngest team in the league under Mac's leadership; no team had more than a five-game turnaround. The winner of that award, Bill Belichick, led the 12-4 Patriots to 16-0 with the most talented roster in the game, a four-game turnaround. McCarthy is only in his third year in the league, and has compiled a 27-21 record (.563 pct.) with not only the youngest team in the NFL all three years, but one that has been eight-figures below the salary cap every year. He has endured the loss of a Hall of Fame quarterback and subsequent division of the fan base, a running game that has been basically non-existent for stretches of all three seasons, and a decimated defense in 2008, his only losing season. Expect a bounce-back year for Mac and his Pack. Special Teams Coordinator Shawn Slocum begins his first season as the Green Bay Packers special teams coordinator after joining the club in 2006 as assistant special teams coach. In his three seasons as special teams assistant, he has worked with Will Blackmon, Jason Hunter, Jarrett Bush and Tramon Williams. Blackmon already has tied the franchise record with three punt returns for touchdowns in the last two seasons. The development of the special teams helped produce a rise from the bottom to seventh in the Dallas Morning News' annual special teams rankings for 2007. He was promoted to take the place of the retired Mike Stock, who oversaw a terrible punting game and less effective coverage units. However, Mason Crosby led the league in scoring as a rookie kicker, and the Packers did have multiple touchdown returns. Thus, Stock gets a C+ for 2008. Special Teams Assistant Curtis Fuller has now joined the team by taking over for the promoted Slocum, whose role in an up-and-down special teams earns him a C+ for this position in 2008. Fuller spent the 2008 training camp with the Packers through the NFL's Minority Coaching Internship Program. He previously coached in Oakland as a special teams quality control assistant in 2007. Prior to that, Fuller worked in the scouting department for the Dallas Cowboys. Strength and Conditioning Dave Redding comes to the Packers after the most deserving NFL firing since Matt Millen. Rock Gullickson oversaw the health of a team that had over two dozen players on their injury report. In fact, 22 players were listed on the report before their early-October game against Seattle. In case you cannot tell, I am giving Gullickson an F (only because you cannot go lower) for his role in 2008. Redding last worked in the NFL in 2006, spending the last two years as a private nutritional and fitness consultant. He did similar work in his last hiatus from the NFL, from 1998-2000. He has previously been in this role on Marty Schottenheimer's staffs in San Diego, Washington, Kansas City, and Cleveland. While this will be the first time he works for someone other than Marty, he did work with McCarthy on Schottenheimer's staff in Kansas City. He was strength and conditioning coach of the year in 2006, and the first ever strength coach at Washington State University in 1977. Assistant Strength and Conditioning Mark Lovat takes over as Redding's assistant, is the son of former offensive line coach Tom Lovat, and has worked with the Packers as an intern as early as 1994. Lovat was a multi-sport athlete in high school, and a three-year starter in the middle infield at Butler University, even serving as the team's captain. He earned a master's degree in exercise science and performance enhancement from California University of Pennsylvania in 2005. Strength and Conditioning Assistant Mondray Gee is listed as Strength and Conditioning Assistant--how that is different from Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach, I am not sure. He spent the last seven seasons in a similar role with the Detroit Lions, assisting with practice and game day activities, as well as organizing and overseeing activities during the week.