Black Friday: The Purging Begins » Brats & Beer

January 14, 2006
posted under: coaching carousel, Mike McCarthy, Packers

Yesterday the Green Bay Packers fired six coaches from the Sherman administration, which is a damn, crying shame because now I’m going to have to learn all new names to yell at the TV. The big names let go included offensive coordinator Tom Rossley, offensive line coach Larry Beightol, and special teams coach John Bonamego. Rossley managed to survive all six seasons of the Sherman era as OC while the defensive staff got twirled around the revolving door and did a pretty good job overall. Though, as good as the offense was during most of the period, I could have probably called plays and looked like a freakin’ genius. Health problems, though, sidelined Rossley for a spell during the 2004 campaign and I think he was marginalized somewhat after that as Sherman became more (overly?) confident in his own playcalling abilities.

Beightol not only made it through the Sherman years, he came out of the Ray Rhodes Experience, so you gotta give him props as a survivor. Like Rossley, he had a lot of talent to work with during most of those seasons, and it’s hard to argue with the numbers the offense managed to rack up, but I think this season showed that he wasn’t as skilled at coaching ‘em up given the way Whittacker and Adrian Klemm underperformed. It sounds, too, like new coach McCarthy is looking to implement a zone blocking scheme to replace Beightol’s one-on-one schemes, so I guess he had to go.

Bonamego was only with the Packers for three seasons, having joined the team from the Jaguars in 2003. It seems like special teams was always a problem area during Sherman’s tenure and it certainly didn’t improve much at all under Bonny’s leadership. Kick coverage and return blocking was always suspect, so I’m not sorry at all to see him go.

The big question, of course, is still Jim Bates, who has yet to even meet McCarthy according to the Journal Sentinel. I can understand that he’s disappointed at not getting the HC job and probably thinks he can get hired by another club, but I really hope he finds a way to work it out with McCarthy and stays in Green Bay.