After giving up play calling this season, Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy quipped during a halftime interview on Thursday night that he was "bored stiff." After the 22-11 win over the New England Patriots, the coach has some new game tape to watch.
"It looked like I didn't know what to do with my hands?" McCarthy replied when told of his sideline mannerisms, via ESPN Wisconsin. "That's funny. I'll work on it. I'll go look at the tape."
The Packers' offense didn't look much different with Tom Clements calling the plays. Green Bay moved the ball up and down the field -- four Packer quarterbacks combined to go 27-of-43 passing for 273 yards and two touchdowns, including Aaron Rodgers' 11 of 19 for 117. They also struggled in the red zone and short yardage, which isn't exactly new for Packer fans to witness.
Still, McCarthy is adjusting to not being the voice inside the helmet.
"It's totally different," McCarthy said. "I'm not competing against their defense calling plays. But, it's a different role.
"You do enjoy the game more. That's what a number of people were telling me beforehand. You do enjoy the game more. But it's preseason. There's a lot of things that are going on that you don't think about in a normal game. Substitutions, trying to get certain guys opportunities. We played no-huddle the whole first half. I wanted to make sure we got our fullbacks some work. Those kinds of things. Those are conversations that you don't have in the regular season."
It will be interesting see how much McCarthy's game managing improves or changes now that he's not wrapped up in the play-calling duties.
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