Packers Morning Buzz: Mike McCarthy facing uphill battle to land another NFL job

Welcome to your Morning Buzz, rounding up news and views regarding the Green Bay Packers from around the web and here at PackersNews.com.

We'll start with the esteemed Peter King writing that former Packers coach Mike McCarthy may have a difficult time landing an NFL head-coaching job next season in light of what came out of Tyler Dunne's Bleacher Report story.

King writes:

My biggest takeaway from Tyler Dunne’s excellent unpacking of the Packers/Rodgers/McCarthy/Thompson story is this: Mike McCarthy is going to have to work hard, and repair his tarnished image significantly in the next nine months, to have a real shot at a head-coaching job in 2020. With the broadsides he’s taken since getting fired by the Packers late last season, McCarthy has a chance to be Brian Billick—a Super Bowl-winning coach damaged so much late in his tenure that he never got a chance to coach another team.

You can read more from King here:

Aaron Rodgers issued a fiery response to the Bleacher Report article in a lengthy interview with ESPN Milwaukee's Jason Wilde and Mark Tauscher. Ryan Wood boils it down:

The MMQB's Albert Breer gives his take on McCarthy vs. Rodgers:

Bleacher Report’s Ty Dunne did a very thorough job breaking down the Packers’ issues and the rift between Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers that blew wide open last fall (our own Kalyn Kahler did really good work writing about Green Bay during the season as well). And in there, we clearly see the challenge facing new coach Matt LaFleur.

A head coach doesn’t automatically win Rodgers‘s favor. I was told last year that things got so strained between coach and quarterback that it almost became sport to see who had the better call. As a 14-year veteran, Rodgers had the green light to change plays at the line, and was exercising his option to do it constantly with McCarthy, which came off to others, implicitly, as acting like he knew better. That kept McCarthy from getting into a rhythm as a play-caller at times, and led to some games getting away from the Packers offense.

It only got worse when long-time assistants Tom Clements and Alex Van Pelt, well known to be buffers between the two, were ousted in consecutive offseasons. What could complicate things further is that LaFleur comes from a coaching tree where offensive coaches generally wield a lot of control and work to make things simpler on their quarterbacks (one example: some control over checks goes to the center, to allow the QB to play faster). As a result, I’d think the first job for both LaFleur and Rodgers would be finding a middle ground.

You can read Breer's entire column here:

Former Packers receiver Jeff Janis, who according to the Bleacher Report article was "dogged" by Rodgers and McCarthy, responds:

How did LaFleur fare in leading his first team meeting? The new Packers coach provided a snapshot in his first tweet from Green Bay:

Za'Darius Smith isn't going to be shy in providing glimpses:

Offensive lineman Cole Madison is back with the Packers after sitting out last season due to a personal issue:

Writing for the Wisconsin State Journal, Wilde says Rodgers is finding out how Brett Favre felt in his later years:

Free-agent defensive tackle Rodney Gunter, who visited with the Packers last week, re-signed with the Cardinals:

The Bears also are hopeful of getting a rare compensatory pick for losing safety Adrian Amos to the Packers:

More than ever, the first round is the place to find your quarterback:

It's clear that Green Bay's stunning loss to Seattle in the 2014 NFC Championship game was the point of no return for the McCarthy-Rodgers relationship, writes Pete Bukowski of Acme Packing Co.

And finally: Good guy Jayrone Elliott is back in the NFL:

Contact Stu Courtney at (920) 431-8377 or scourtney@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stucourt