Packers season hits new low with awful home loss to Cardinals
There was an NFL Network report on Sunday that Arizona Cardinals rookie head coach Steve Wilks wasn’t guaranteed a second season. A win over the Green Bay Packers might remedy that.
As for Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy, his future might have been sealed on Sunday.
The Packers were already in the middle of a terrible season, and a loss against a bad Cardinals team at home makes it much worse. Green Bay lost when Mason Crosby’s field-goal attempt to tie the game on the final play went wide right. Arizona got the upset 20-17 victory. The Cardinals were 2-9 before Sunday. And they were competitive against the Packers for the entire game. That says a lot about the Packers.
Aaron Rodgers tried firing his team up last week by laying out how the Packers would win their last five games and make the playoffs. Green Bay didn’t even get the first of those five wins, which should have been the easiest one.
And with an absolutely flat, disappointing loss at Lambeau Field to one of the worst teams in the NFL, that should truly be the end of the McCarthy era.
Packers’ loss symbolic of their season
The Packers have been pretty bad all season, and their same issues showed up again on Sunday. The offense has some talented players, but Rodgers had just 233 yards and one touchdown. There wasn’t a lot from the running game and not one passing play over 19 yards.
Green Bay’s defense was OK, but it did allow a handful of long plays and didn’t make many of its own against rookie quarterback Josh Rosen. The defense wasn’t great but it wasn’t the problem either. The loss goes on the stale offense for being punchless and the coaching staff for not having the team ready. Those two might go hand-in-hand anyway.
The wet weather didn’t help. Crosby could have sent the game to overtime, but he missed. But make no mistake, the Packers should never have been struggling to beat the Cardinals at home. It has been a miserable season in Green Bay.
Packers are a startling 4-7-1
The Packers are 4-7-1 and any slight dream of making a miracle run to the playoffs is over. A team with this much talent, including Rodgers, should never be virtually eliminated on Dec. 2.
Green Bay was supposed to be a Super Bowl contender. There’s a good chance the Packers will finish with a losing record instead. McCarthy has been the Packers coach since 2006. It’s hard to imagine he’ll be back next season, especially after what happened on Sunday.
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Frank Schwab is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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