Green Bay Packers Coach Mike McCarthy Should Be a Coach of the Year Candidate

At this point it should surprise no one, but the Green Bay Packers placed another starter on injured reserve today—right tackle Mark Tauscher. 

Tauscher had been fighting his way back into playing form after sustaining a shoulder injury Week 4 against Detroit, but general manager Ted Thompson decided it was time to end his season. 

“Despite long odds, Mark has been battling this shoulder injury in an effort to get back on the field,” Thompson told the media today. “His work ethic and motivation have been tremendous but the injury has been too severe to overcome. He is a team leader and will be an important part of our team as we go through the stretch run of our season.”

Tauscher marks the third offensive starter to hit the IR this season, joining Ryan Grant and Jermichael Finley on a list that has seemingly added a player every week.

The Packers brought back do-it-all fan favorite Spencer Havner to fill Tauscher's roster spot, which should make a few fans happy who disagreed with the team's decision to cut him before the season started. 

Who is another man that has made Packers' fans happy in recent weeks?

Head coach Mike McCarthy. 

This season McCarthy has arguably done the finest job of his career at the helm of the Packers, and despite all the young coaches who have brought their respective teams back to relevance, McCarthy should be right in the running for NFL Head Coach of the Year.

For all the criticism McCarthy took at the beginning of the year, he's been instrumental in turning around the Packers' 2010 season. Fans were very critical of the offensive playing calling in Green Bay through the first six games, and there was more then a few writers throughout the blogosphere that wanted both McCarthy and Thompson gone after the Packers started 3-3. 

Fast forward three weeks, and three huge victories later, and the confidence in McCarthy and Thompson arguably hasn't been higher. 

Should that confidence have even wavered in the first place though? 

First of all, McCarthy has had to fight through more injuries then anyone in the NFL. The Indianapolis Colts have fought through injuries too, but no one can match the Packers six starters and 11 total players on IR.

Losing Ryan Grant in the first half on the first game obviously hindered the offensive gameplanning, and it took backups Brandon Jackson and John Kuhn more then a few weeks to get their feet underneath them. Then the Packers lost up-and-coming star tight end Jermichael Finley, who had previously been the focal point of the offense in 2010.

Again, McCarthy had to do some offensive rearranging, and while the offense hasn't been the juggernaut that many predicted, McCarthy and offensive coordinator Joe Philbin have done admirable jobs ensuring the Packers' offense stays viable. 

I won't lie, after the Packers lost to the Miami Dolphins in overtime to drop to 3-3, I was worried what would happen to a once-promising season. With all the injuries, would the Packers make the playoffs? Finish .500? Another 2008?

That's when McCarthy and Packers put together an impressive three game stretch that included victories over the Vikings, Jets, and Cowboys. 

Green Bay finally exorcised the demon of Brett Favre in their win over Minnesota, then won possibly one of the more notable games of the 2010 NFL season by shutting out the 5-1 Jets in the New Meadowlands. 

The Dallas Cowboys were dead before they even entered Lambeau Field, but beating any NFL team 45-7 is a sensational effort. It was such a terrible performance from Dallas that their own head coach, Wade Phillips, got the axe for it. 

But couldn't that have been the Packers and McCarthy just as easily? With so many injuries, and so many good players watching the game from the sideline, shouldn't it have been the Packers who were blown out?

McCarthy has made sure both of those answers were a definitive no. Because unlike the Cowboys, the Packers haven't made any excuses. They were hit with a few early blows, but McCarthy and the Packers are firmly back on their feet heading into the bye. 

Asked what was different from now since the Packers fell to 3-3, McCarthy simply said, "The coaches and players stayed the course. Nobody blinked."

That kind of attitude has kept the Packers from panicking. And now at 6-3, and on top of the NFC North, McCarthy has the bye week to get his team healthy and begin preparing for a tough final seven games.

And while he most likely won't win any hardware with the Chiefs, Rams and Buccaneers all having unexpected seasons, that doesn't mean he shouldn't be right in the running. 

Because even though Packers fans hate hearing "We'll have to look at the film," McCarthy has done a hell of a job this season.