Packers Notes: Mike McCarthy, Aaron Rodgers, Joe Philbin

Mike McCarthy

Packers president Mark Murphy said in an interview with WTMJ that Mike McCarthy was allowed to speak to the players on Wednesday regarding the team’s decision to fire him. 

“Mike came in and spoke to the team yesterday,” Murphy said. “I thought that was good. I think Mike wanted some closure with the players and some of the other coaches to thank them and say goodbye to them as well.”

As for the decision to move on from McCarthy, Murphy said he felt a change and a new voice were needed.

“The way the season had played out, I just felt that we needed a change,” says Murphy. “It wasn’t anything particularly that [McCarthy] did wrong. I just felt that the message had become stale and we needed a new voice.”

Aaron Rodgers

Packers QB Aaron Rodgers says “there’s always been a great deal of accountability” under Mike McCarthy, despite the recent comment from associate HC Winston Moss, who was later fired.

“There’s always been a great deal of accountability under Mike’s program for the last 13 years,” Rodgers said, via Packersnews.com. “There’s consequences for actions that are outside of what’s in the best interest of the team, and there’s never been – I used to always tell him, I said, ‘Hey, if you need to call on somebody in the meeting to let everybody know we’re all on equal playing field, call on me first. Call me out.’ Just so everybody knows nobody is off limits, we’re holding everybody to the same standard. And I feel that’s the way it always was.”

Joe Philbin

Packers interim HC Joe Philbin told reporters that the last time he called plays was 1996, when he was the offensive coordinator at Northeastern University.

“It’s been a while,” Philbin said, via ESPN.com. “Been a while.”

“I would sit with Mike and Aaron a lot and talk about the calls and first 15 [plays that are scripted] and those things,” Philbin explained. “But yeah, obviously it’s going to be a little bit different. Sometimes, because I wasn’t calling the plays, I could kind of peek ahead a little bit so we could move forward a little bit. I think that will be the biggest difference. I’m not going to be looking at our next opponent until the game is over. I think that’s one of the big changes. And then obviously just sequencing the calls the right way and hopefully they work when we call ’em.”

Packers

• According to Michael Cohen, the Packers increased practice squad OL Adam Pankey‘s salary from $129,200 to $555,000 after another team attempted to sign him. 
• Cohen mentions that Pankey’s new salary is the same amount as the league minimum for players on the active roster.