GREEN BAY, Wis. — For someone who already has delivered as many Lombardi trophies as Mike Holmgren, the Packers’ current head coach still is a mystery guest outside of Titletown.
And even within this football-obsessed hamlet, Mike McCarthy didn’t exactly prompt euphoria or visions of an immediate return to glory when Green Bay tabbed him to replace Mike Sherman six years ago.
Even now, after taking the Packers to the playoffs in four of his six seasons and winning a Super Bowl while calling the plays for Aaron Rodgers in one of the most prolific offenses in NFL history, McCarthy remains something of an enigma around the country.
Which, according to those who know him, is exactly how the 48-year-old likes it.
“He’s one of those guys that likes to be to himself,” veteran wideout Donald Driver said this week. “He’s not the boasting, bragging type that you see around the National Football League. Mike’s basically a humble guy, and as a player, that’s really what you want.”
Driver is the lone current Packer who would know that best, considering no one else on the roster that will face the Giants today in an NFC divisional playoff game at Lambeau Field was here when McCarthy served one season as Green Bay’s quarterbacks coach in 1999.
Five subsequent years as offensive coordinator for the Saints in which New Orleans finished better than 9-7 just once hardly raised McCarthy’s profile, and one 4-12 season calling the plays for the 49ers in 2005 seemingly put his name in cold storage.
Except, that is, with Packers GM Ted Thompson, who said McCarthy’s genuine personality mattered more than statistics or strategy when Thompson was looking for the 14th head coach in his storied franchise’s history.
“Everybody can do X’s and O’s,” Thompson told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel last month. “I’ve played some football, but that was years ago, so that kind of goes right past me. I knew [McCarthy] would be a good man. I thought that was important.”
Thompson was able to spot that in McCarthy even though both the Pittsburgh native’s personality and play-calling style are belied by a burly, gruff-sounding exterior that Thompson likes to call “Pittsburgh Macho.”
Getting McCarthy to talk about himself is about as easy as getting a suntan outdoors in Green Bay in January, too.
“I am focused on the next day, the next game,” McCarthy said. “I feel very strongly that our football team is very much in touch with reality and understand how hard it is to win in this league and win each and every week and really focus on winning this next game. I would say that is my mindset.”
That might sound Lombardi-esque in its tunnel vision, but those close to McCarthy say don’t be fooled by the exterior. Indeed, it’s about as common for a true Pittsburgh football guy to favor the wide-open, pass happy West Coast offense as it is to see him tear up at a news conference — yet both are part of McCarthy’s biography.
Not only has Green Bay ranked among the NFL’s top 10 in passing offense in each of McCarthy’s six seasons, marking a franchise transformation on the field, but McCarthy also choked up publicly as tears welled in his eyes this week when describing his reaction to the death of assistant coach Joe Philbin’s 21-year-old son.
“He’s definitely a player’s coach,” cornerback Tramon Williams said, adding that McCarthy enforces the right amount of discipline, too. “His door is open anytime you need to talk about, which is something you definitely look for both as a coach and just as a person, to be honest.”
McCarthy has persevered, too. Thompson heard the second-guessing right away as the Packers dropped eight of their first 12 games under McCarthy in 2006, then lost at home to the Giants in the NFC title game at Lambeau the following season.
All of that paled in comparison, of course, to handling the delicate transition from beloved local hero Brett Favre to Rodgers four years ago – especially when Favre led the Vikings to the cusp of a Super Bowl appearance in 2009 while Green Bay lost in the wild-card round.
But after beating his hometown Steelers in the Super Bowl last year while overseeing the incredible rise of Rodgers, McCarthy is now revered here and respected as one of the sport’s best coaches – even if most of the country still couldn’t pick him out of a police lineup.
“You can have your big-name [coaches] with all their commercials and TV shows and stuff,” Williams said. “I don’t think anybody in this locker room would want anyone else.”