The Green Bay Packers pulled the trigger on letting go of head coach Mike McCarthy on Sunday afternoon following another disappointing loss that has sent the team tumbling further out of the playoff picture.

This decision seemed to be a long time in the making. There have been rumblings throughout this season, especially during their recent struggles, that things were no longer panning out like the team would have hoped. Among those things was the playcalling to which Rodgers was regularly seen changing the play calls that McCarthy had chosen, according to Albert Breer and Kalyn Kahler of Sports Illustrated.

The friction between McCarthy and Rodgers has been well-documented. As I understand it, it’d had gotten to the point where Rodgers—who has autonomy to adjust as he sees fit—was regularly changing plays, which would make it difficult for McCarthy to find his rhythm as a play-caller. As one coach who knows them both told me, “It’s almost ‘who’s got the better call?’ … Two really smart guys, ultra-competitive guys.”

This is something that had continued to see more friction develop over the last few years, as has contributed to the team's shortcomings on the field. The fact that Rodgers was changing the plays shouldn't come as a surprise as star quarterbacks have shown the tendency to do that in order to run what they believe best fits.

At the same, this is something Rodgers has likely done more frequently, as has been vocal over the last couple of years about the offense. He had aired some issues with the type of game-planning that the team had put forth this year that led to a public back and forth between him and McCarthy.

This was just another telling sign that things were starting to boil over to the point where change was necessary to help shift things back in the right direction.