Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy may have gotten away with it, but he knows he dodged a bullet with one of his playcalls on Sunday.
McCarthy elected to go for it up eight from his own 42 yard line midway through the third quarter in the wild-card game against the Giants. The Packers fell short, the Giants immediately scored a touchdown to cut the lead to one, and it was enough to get McCarthy to admit after the game that he made a mistake.
“Oh, I was pissed off,” McCarthy said, via Michael Silver of NFL Media. “Totally. That’s just the way I’m wired. I feel responsible when things don’t go well. I mean, my job’s to orchestrate and keep our guys in healthy plays and create flow and rhythm for Aaron. That’s the way I believe play-calling should operate. But there was too much risk there. I screwed it up.”
McCarthy’s players had his back and ended up romping to a 38-13 win, scoring 24 unanswered points after that New York touchdown. It’s easy to have a lot of faith in your team to bail you out when things like this happen on occasion.
