McCarthy: Clements still involved in game-planning

Packers coach Mike McCarthy spoke to the media Monday evening. Here are some highlights from his news conference:

On Mike Daniels:

I’m very happy for Mike Daniels and his family. Anytime your players get rewarded, it’s great. I’m thrilled we were able to get that done.

On Daniels’ progress:

Mike has always been a buzz saw. His play style was definitely that at Iowa. I think he’s matured in every way as far as a student of the game. His work ethic is definitely at the highest level. He does a great job.

On offensive operation:

I thought we played well offensively. The run-pass combination was the plan going into the game. I thought we had a number of guys grade out positively.

On McCarthy taking over play-calling:

I feel like I addressed that after the game. That’s the way we’ll operate going forward. Everyone has a role to do on game day.

On Tom Clements’ role:

His role hasn’t changed minus the play-calling. He’s very involved in the game-planning.

On Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins:

They did a nice job. Randall played very well. Rollins has some things to clean up. I’m very happy with those two rookies. Not only with how they’re playing, but their preparation.

On if they have a championship-caliber defense:

We have work to do. I think that was clearly established in those second six games. I think we tackled well. Defense, when we stop the run, we’re tough to handle, particularly on third down.

On Jayrone Elliott:

Really, player participation, there are a lot of things that go into it. I love the way he’s matured from Year 1 to Year 2. He’s playing with a veteran group that’s having a good year. You look at the number of plays on defense. They weren’t on the field very long.

On keeping Aaron Rodgers in the pocket:

Really, the scrambling is really part of the game. I’ve never gone into a game and told him to scramble more or less. The scrambling is a product of the execution and he has a good of a feel as anybody around. The ability to move people in the pocket and extend plays, it’s a base concept in our offense.

On if he executed better:

I don’t think that’s really as clean cut as an observation where you can put on an evaluation. What the defense is doing has something to do with it. We’ve seen a lot of five-man rush, man-free defense this year clearly than we ever have.

On if Sam Shields can practice this week:

Too early to tell. I saw Sam after the game and he looked pretty good. We’ll see how he is tomorrow.

On if the run-first approach is their best offense:

You'd like to play every game where the offense has it for 38 minutes. Every week is a challenge. I think a lot is made up of how we used to play. The makeup of our team has definitely been different since Week 1. We need to do everything we need to do to win. Every week is a different challenge.