Around the web: Focus on McCarthy, Mortell

Each week, PackersNews.com will look at stories involving the Packers from national and local internet sites​:

It’s not unusual to come across an in-depth feature on the Green Bay Packers from a national writer. Media outlets send reporters to Green Bay all the time to cover different aspects of the team.

It is unusual, however, to find not one but two outstanding features on the Packers from a national writer published in the same week for two different sites.

Dan Pompei pulled off that rare double last week with two penetrating pieces.

First up was his look at Mike McCarthy for The Athletic. Pompei examines the program the Packers' coach has built in Green Bay over the last decade. It sometimes gets overlooked just how difficult it can be for a coach to keep his message fresh year after year in one place. Pompei does a great job illustrating how McCarthy has built and tweaked his program to ensure his message doesn’t get lost.

The other feature from Pompei that caught our eye, one that is incredibly detailed and undoubtedly will resonate with anyone who grew up wishing they could play for the Green and Gold, is his feature for Bleacher Report on Peter Mortell’s bid to displace Tim Masthay as the Packers’ punter.

From Pompei:

As the players prepared to take the field at Lambeau for Peter's first NFL game, Masthay and kicker Mason Crosby told him he would lead the team through the tunnel during player introductions. Peter suspected they were pranking him, that he would run onto the field alone while his teammates stayed behind.

But this was no joke.

Although Mortell revealed Monday on Twitter and Instagram that his efforts to win the job had come up short, Pompei's story, entitled “The Ultimate Lambeau Leap” still is well worth your time.

Another post worth noting was from Jason Wilde over at ESPN.com on the story of Aaron Rodgers taking some time to pose for pictures with a group of young women at the Green Bay airport who turned out to be the Stephen F. Austin women's volleyball team, up from Nacogdoches, Texas for a tournament.

Speaking of the Packers quarterback, he recently sat down with Complex News for an interview about everything from his switch to Adidas from Nike to his pregame routine.