The Green Bay Packers are going to be sitting at home for the next two weeks rather than getting ready for the Super Bowl after blowing a 19-7 lead in the final minutes of the NFC Championship Game.

There's plenty of places to lay the blame for why that's the case: Brandon Bostick for dropping an onside kick; Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix for failing to knock down either the ball or Luke Willson on Russell Wilson's miraculous two-point conversion; Mike Daniels for a bone-headed personal foul early in the game; Jordy Nelson for dropping two passes; Tramon Williams for letting Jermaine Kearse beat him deep; and Mike McCarthy for coaching too conservatively all afternoon.

McCarthy three times kicked a field goal on 4th-and-1 in the first 20 minutes of the game as the Packers came away with only 16 points on five trips inside Seattle's 30-yard line. The first drive ended with an Aaron Rodgers interception when he tested Richard Sherman on a deep ball. Not much you can do about that. Rodgers made a poor decision and Sherman just made a great play.

Green Bay started its second drive of the game from the Seahawks' 19-yard line after a Russell Wilson interception. A Rodgers pass followed by three straight runs set them up with 4th-and-goal inside the 1. McCarthy opted for a field goal.

The Packers started their next drive from Seattle's 23-yard line. Three runs and a Rodgers completion later, the Packers had 4th-and-goal just outside the 1. McCarthy again opted for a field goal.

You can question Mike McCarthy's play-calling, but he won't. (Getty Images)

Green Bay's fourth drive of the game started at Seattle's 33-yard line. After a first down via penalty, three straight runs pushed the Packers into 4th-and-1 from the Seattle 22-yard line. Again, McCarthy took a field goal.

McCarthy later said he, "just felt that you had to take points," but it's probably more accurate to say he left points on the field. As Grantland's Bill Barnwell noted, the first two field goal decisions likely cost McCarthy's team approximately 2.6 points that would have been pretty valuable, given how the game turned out.

Those weren't McCarthy's only overly conservative decisions of the day.

 

After the game, McCarthy said of the above stretch of plays, "If you want to question my play-calling ... I'm not questioning it," according the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I came in here to run the ball. The one statistic I had has as far as a target to hit was 20 rushing attempts in the second half, I thought that would be a very important target to hit for our offense."

Green Bay only had eight second-half rushes up to that point. Minus James Starks' 32-yarder to open the fourth quarter, those runs produced a total of 26 yards. On the day, the Packers averaged 3.5 yards per carry on runs not including Starks' big scamper. Rodgers did not have his best game, but surely putting the game in his hands, or at least mixing up the play-calling a bit, was more desirable than attempting to run the ball 12 times in the final six minutes of the game just to reach an arbitrary quota.