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Last offseason, Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy decided to cede play-calling duties to his offensive coordinator, Tom Clements. The idea behind the change was that it would give McCarthy more time to focus on the entire team and provide more opportunities for his assistants to prove their worth as potential head coaches.

Things went pretty swimmingly at first, as Green Bay started the season 6-0 while averaging 27.3 points per game despite the absence of No. 1 receiver Jordy Nelson. Once the Packers returned from their Week 7 bye, though, the offense took a sharp nose dive. Over the next six games, the Packers went 2-4 and averaged only 20.8 points per game. And then McCarthy took play-calling duties back from Clements. The Packers subsequently went 1-2 and averaged 17.0 points per game over the final three weeks of the regular season with McCarthy calling plays, then went 1-1 in the playoffs while scoring an average of 27.5 points per game.

Now, in a conversation with USA Today, McCarthy said he's done letting anyone else call his plays. "I'll never do that again," McCarthy said.

I guess he feels he now has enough time to spend with the entire team and call plays. Or maybe he just no longer cares if his assistant coaches got head coaching opportunities elsewhere. Or maybe the Packers' issue was never play-calling at all, but McCarthy's overly conservative nature, as we wrote both when the decision to give up play-calling duties was first announced as well as when the decision to take them back was announced.

The Packers had five top-5 finishes in offensive DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, which adjusts performance for down, distance, and opponent) and twice claimed the top spot with McCarthy calling plays. They finished outside the top-10 only twice in nine seasons, one of which was Aaron Rodgers' first year as the starter. Their scoring average of 27.1 points per game during his tenure would routinely rank in the top-5 to 10 in the league. Far more than play calling, what McCarthy struggled with was situational football and game management.
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And that gets at the issue here, which is not with play-calling but rather with game management. McCarthy has long been known as one of the NFL's most conservative coaches, rarely taking chances on fourth downs, two-point conversions or the like until absolutely necessitated by the score and game situation. He's been known to get bogged down with conservative calls once the Packers get into Mason Crosby's field goal range, and especially in the red zone. With the amount of offensive talent on hand, particularly with Rodgers' pinpoint accuracy and the bruising running style of Eddie Lacy, it would behoove him to be more aggressive.

But given that McCarthy is still the head coach in Green Bay, if he won't be calling plays, it seems fairly unlikely he'll be giving up game management duties like fourth-down decisions. If that's indeed the case, not much figures to change because Green Bay isn't likely to suddenly get more aggressive. The most likely outcome is that the Packers continue to have a very good offense largely due to the talent on hand, but one that gets overly conservative in field goal range, the red zone (rest easy, those of you who love John Kuhn hand-offs) and on fourth downs.

And so we say again, it is likely that the Packers will have a good offense in 2016. They have routinely been a top offensive team under McCarthy and with Aaron Rodgers at the helm With Jordy Nelson healthy and Eddie Lacy dropping weight like he's on The Biggest Loser, they could even be better than they were last year.

But they will likely still struggle with situational football unless McCarthy undergoes a sudden personality change and decides to leverage his offensive talent by being more aggressive. He wouldn't be the first coach to do that (does Riverboat Ron ring a bell?), but most NFL coaches don't change their stripes after 10 years in the league.