After firing their longest-tenured coach since Curly Lambeau, the Packers will enter a hiring period with a high-profile vacancy.
While Green Bay’s next head coach will be tasked with recharging the Aaron Rodgers-led team and maximizing the championship potential created by the quarterback’s employment, the two-time MVP will not be part of the Packers’ coaching search, team president Mark Murphy said Monday (via Jason Wilde of ESPNWisconsin.com, on Twitter).
“Obviously, he’s free to provide input and talk to us,” Murphy said, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com. “But he’s not going to be a part of the process. … The other thing I would say, Aaron was no part at all in the decision to move on from Mike (McCarthy).”
Murphy will be the one making the hire, not GM Brian Gutekunst, though Murphy said he obviously will not pick a coach with whom the soon-to-be second-year GM is uncomfortable. Gutekunst will be “actively involved” in the search, however (Twitter links via Wilde).
Gutekunst, Russ Ball and McCarthy each reported to Murphy this year in the Packers’ post-Ted Thompson-era arrangement. It appears that power structure will not change entering a crucial time for the franchise.
Interim head coach Joe Philbin will be a legitimate candidate, per Murphy (via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Tom Silverstein, on Twitter). Rehired as offensive coordinator this offseason, Philbin was Green Bay’s OC during the team’s most recent Super Bowl title season and finished that stint in Rodgers’ 2011 MVP slate prior to becoming the Dolphins’ HC. But the two-stint Packers assistant landing the top job would obviously be an upset.
The Packers fired McCarthy early to dive into the search process early, but Murphy won’t be hiring a coach before the season ends, per Silverstein (on Twitter). While the Packers are mired in their most disappointing season in more than a decade, Rodgers (via Silverstein, on Twitter) doesn’t view the team as entering a rebuild. Prior to a Rodgers injury leading to the end of the Packers’ playoff streak last season, the franchise had qualified for the previous eight NFC brackets. At 4-7-1, the Packers are now a long shot to make that nine in 10 years.
Seriously though… if Rodgers was actually part of the group deciding who Green Bay’s next coach would be, do you really think Murphy would admit that to reporters? Has any NFL team ever publicly admitted that their star player had a hand in the decision to hire or fire the coach?
NFL, no. It seems more likely in the NBA
For some reason people get upset at the thought of a player having input on front office decisions. Not sure why you wouldn’t want the input of the guy who makes 30 million dollars and is the biggest reason your team succeeds/fails.
Get a young offensive mind that will reinvigorate Rodgers and keep Pettine as the DC.
Good idea!
Why pay a player to be the highest paid in the league and not seek his advice on a HC search? That’s a moronic stance.
That’d be like hiring a CFO and not allowing him/her to make financial decisions for the company.
That comment was moronic.
How so? Why pay him $180m and not let him help choose who is the right coach?
I understand the logic behind what you are saying but what if after choosing the coach, Rodgers suffers a career ending injury? The Bears bent over backwards trying to please Cutler by bringing in a whole series of different OCs. It was a bandaid approach doomed to fail. Rodgers should be providing input but their are 52 other guys that contribute to the overall success of a team.
Sorry here are the numbers: Aaron Rodgers signed a 4 year, $134,000,000 contract with the Green Bay Packers, including a $57,500,000 signing bonus, $98,700,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $33,500,000.
He shouldn’t have a say? Then what’s his real value?
Seriously though. Rodgers has to be the most overrated qb in the NFL.
Seriously though. You couldn’t be more wrong. Seriously.
Rodgers more overated than Chistian Hackenberg? One of them has an MVP award and the other is trying to make the cut in the AAF.
Murphy is undermining his GM by indicating he has no confidence in Gutekunst’s ability to hire a HC. This is the same kind of dysfunction the Raiders allow by having Gruden veto McKenzie. If you don’t trust people to make good decisions then why hire them in the first place?
Murphy is the problem. Going around GM…poor management practice. If u don’t trust his decision making, replace him. How did Murphy get this job?