The easiest thing for the Packers to do with tapes of their playoff loss to the Seahawks would be to ignore them, or burn them.
But the Packers have poured themselves into them, poring over each of the mistakes that helped them blow a late lead and lose the NFC Championship Game in dramatic fashion.
Via Jason Wilde of ESPNWisconsin.com, Packers coach Mike McCarthy said all the plays that contributed to that loss have been gone over time and again, to catalog the disappointment and look for answers.
“That’s part of your scheme evaluation,” McCarthy said. “We have done it as a staff. We cut up every situation, so we’ve seen those plays from that game a number of times from our scheme evaluation.”
In case you’ve forgotten (they haven’t), the Packers were up 19-7 with under five minutes to play, and ended up losing in overtime thanks to a fake field goal and a botched extra point.
There has also been accountability, with special teams coach Shawn Slocum fired and a number of the players involved in those mistakes released (Brandon Bostick, Brad Jones and A.J. Hawk).
The mistakes were the kind that grind away at coaches, who plan so meticulously and carefully for any situation, then watch a season unravel in an instant.
McCarthy said he’s even gone back and watched the television copies of the game to supplement the game film, apparently needing a reminder of how bad it looked to those who live outside the world of All-22.
That couldn’t have been easy, and frankly somebody should buy the poor guy a stiff drink or something for sitting through it again.
