While his Green Bay Packers players were on their mini-postseason vacations, off until the team reconvenes at 7:50 a.m. Friday, coach Mike McCarthy and his staff were right back at work Monday, one day after closing out the regular season with a 34-13 victory over the Detroit Lions at Lambeau Field.
But since the second-seeded Packers (13-3) don’t know their opponent for their NFC divisional playoff game
Jan. 12, the coaches were prepping for all three possibilities — Seattle (10-6), Tampa Bay
(9-7) and New York (10-6).
The third-seeded Seahawks face the sixth-seeded Washington Redskins (9-7) on Saturday; the fourth-seeded Buccaneers play host to the fifth-seeded Giants on Sunday.
If the Mike Holmgren-coached Seahawks win Saturday, they’ll be the Packers’ opponent, since top-seeded Dallas (13-3) is assured of hosting the lowest remaining seed on Jan. 13. If the Redskins pull off the upset, the Packers will have to wait until Sunday’s Bucs-Giants game to find out their opponent.
“Everybody understands how the playoff system works. So we’re just doing all the prep work, and we’ll be ready to go,” McCarthy said after the staff finished its preparation for the Seahawks and was beginning its work on the Bucs.
“We’ll sit here Saturday just like everybody else and watch the game.”
The players will return for in-pads practices Friday and Saturday, and McCarthy said 30 minute jog-throughs will be devoted in part to the Seahawks’ and Bucs’ defensive blitzes and offensive formations. The practices will otherwise focus on “fundamentals,” McCarthy said.
Asked how the coaches are divvying up their time on the three possible opponents, offensive coordinator Joe Philbin said, “Maybe you don’t go quite as deep on each team as you would if you were certain you were playing them, but you obviously have to get a base on what the team is like conceptually. We’ll probably go a little deeper on some teams than others based on the percentages. Once Saturday’s game’s over, we may know for sure. If Seattle loses, then we’ll begin working a little harder on the other two. It’s doable. We’ll get a good feel for all of them.”
A greater challenge will be getting a feel for the Packers, who were the youngest team in the league when the season started and have only 14 players with postseason experience on their 53-man roster.
“As the ol’ chef Emeril (Lagasse) likes to say, ‘You’ve got to kick it up a notch.’ This is the time to kick it up a notch,” special teams coordinator Mike Stock said. “The intensity level goes up because the competition is the best. This is the cream of the crop, and now is the time to rise to the occasion.”
McCarthy said he liked getting the Saturday game instead of Sunday “because you’d like to play sooner than later. You’re going to sit here next week watching the games and you’re going to feel like you don’t know what to do.” In addition, playing the Saturday game would give the Packers one more day of preparation for the Jan. 20 NFC Championship Game if they advance.
Not that the time off isn’t vital, too.
While the coaching staff’s only day off is today for New Year’s Day, McCarthy gave the players four days off, though a number of players chose to stay in Green Bay or had to stick around for injury treatment, including guards Junius Coston (calf) and Jason Spitz (quadriceps). Players are required to do cardiovascular work, but are otherwise encouraged to recharge their batteries by getting away from football.
“It’s important to get away,” McCarthy said. “(For) some guys, coming in getting the treatment and getting a workout in and going home at noon is getting away. A number of players will travel back to their home state or home city. The thing I’m most concerned about is really just the four days of health.”
As for that health, with the exception of the injuries to Coston and Spitz, McCarthy said the win over the Lions gave his team exactly what it needed — some momentum, erasure of the Dec. 23 debacle in Chicago, rest and relatively good health.
“I don’t think it could have played out much better outside of the injuries (to Spitz and Coston),” McCarthy said. “We wanted to win the football game. We wanted to improve fundamentally on some of the mistakes we made the week before. The momentum (of) playing at home. It was an excellent finish to the regular season. We accomplished everything that we were looking to accomplish.”
