Renaming a street is inconvenient for a variety of reasons, including the costs associated with a change of address for businesses. That was the most significant issue when Potts Avenue in Green Bay, Wis., was renamed Mike McCarthy Way in 2014.
"I hope we don't go through this again for a long, long, long time," said Tim Glodoski, the co-owner of Soap Products Co., which had been in its Potts Avenue location for more than 50 years when the street was renamed, via the Green Bay Press Gazette. "Unless we go to the Super Bowl again."
The Packers never went to the Super Bowl again under McCarthy, who was fired Sunday moments after the team’s 20-17 loss to the Cardinals that dropped it to 4-7-1 on the season. His tenure as head coach ended with the one Super Bowl victory, after the 2010 season.
But that street is one of many reasons why Green Bay will never forget what McCarthy did for the franchise.
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Packers fans and the NFL community as a whole might need the benefit of hindsight in the not-so-near future, because the end was ugly. Though McCarthy said he was surprised by the timing of his firing, as many were, few were surprised the 55-year-old was let go as a result of what had become a disastrous 2018 season.
But that hindsight will reveal the fact that McCarthy had a damn good run in Green Bay.
McCarthy’s final record as Packers head coach was 125-77-2, not including playoffs. (That's the best record in the NFC in that span.) Only Vince Lombardi (.754), Mike Holmgren (.670) and Curly Lambeau (.668) finished their head coaching tenures in Green Bay with better winning percentages.
Holmgren, of course, won a Super Bowl and an additional NFC title as coach of the Packers. Lombardi has a pretty significant trophy named after him. Lambeau has a pretty significant building in Green Bay named after him.
Yet none of those coaches won more playoff games as head coach in Green Bay than McCarthy, whose 10 postseason victories edge the nine of Holmgren and Lombardi. McCarthy also is the second longest tenured coach in Packers history; his 203 games are second only to Lambeau’s 334.
McCarthy’s Packers teams won the NFC North six times; they never finished last. They finished in the top three in the league in points differential five times. They finished with the league’s best regular-season record twice and finished with the second-best record once, in 2007, his second year on the job.
And one nugget that doesn't appear on the coaching career stat sheet: Brett Favre's final two seasons as the Packers' quarterback were McCarthy's first two as the franchise's coach. In 2007, Green Bay went 13-3 and lost to the Giants in the NFC championship game. Favre left the team after that season, leaving Rodgers as the new starter. Three years later, Green Bay beat Pittsburgh in the Super Bowl. Even with Rodgers' talent, that transition would not have been so clean under just any coach.
Yes, McCarthy’s role as head coach grew stale in Green Bay, as did his relationship with Rodgers. Yes, the lasting impression of McCarthy will be Sunday's loss to arguably the worst team in the NFL while Green Bay was clinging on to its dear playoff life.
Those are the reasons Packers fans at a bar in Green Bay erupted in cheers (according to former NFL player Nate Boyer) when it was announced McCarthy had been fired.
But those understandable feelings among the Packers faithful should soon be replaced by a tone of thankfulness. If the stats don’t make McCarthy’s impact obvious, that street located about a block Southeast of Lambeau Field should do the trick.
And if that doesn't do it, McCarthy’s presumed eventual induction into the Packers Hall of Fame years down the road will.
"I’m proud I was part of the Packers family," McCarthy told FOX’s Jay Glazer on Sunday after his firing.
Even if they don’t feel it now, Packers fans also will feel proud McCarthy was Green Bay’s coach for almost 13 years. Just give it some time.