It's a new era for the Green Bay Packers. Still, one of the team's most established and respected veterans can't keep himself from looking back on errors of the past. In an interview on ESPN Wisconsin's “Wilde & Tausch” on Wednesday, left tackle David Bakhtiari, an All-Pro each of the last three seasons, implicitly criticized former coach Mike McCarty for failing to hold his players accountable.
“The one thing that always rubbed me the wrong way, and I guess it can kind of parallel with complacency, is accountability,” he said, per ESPN's Jason Wilde. “The one thing that would really grind my gears was guys being late for the plane (before road trips) and no one holding those guys accountable or even fining them for being late.”
McCarthy, who coached the Packers to victory in Super Bowl XLV, was fired in early December after a loss to the lowly Arizona Cardinals. Green Bay was 4-7-1 at the time, highly likely to miss the playoffs for the first season since 2008. As Bakhtiari tells it, an air of complacency within the locker room helped seal McCarthy's fate.
“I think anytime, if complacency is being talked about, that's one [sign] someone’s been in a place for too long,” he said. “I've always told myself that the day I'm complacent is the day I don’t have a job. So I’m pretty sure if I don't have a job anymore, I’ve been complacent.”
The Packers hired Matt LaFleur, former offensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans and Los Angeles Rams, to replace McCarthy in January.
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