McCarthy: The tempo was poor against Vikings

Packers coach Mike McCarthy spoke to the media on Monday evening. Here are the highlights:

On message to players:

Washington Redskins, really. We need to clean our own house. We jumped right into the video, offense and defense.

On being steady:

I think anytime you’re in charge of a group of people, particularly our profession. You have direct and indirect communication, direct is in the meetings. You can usually have a good pulse of your team once you walk into the door. There’s certain levels of energy. I look at the indirect is the filtering of the message throughout the key people in your program.

On if it comes from his background:

I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, so there’s a big part of me that likes where we are. We fully intend to get into this football team, as far as preparation. A lot of video to get through. This is an uncommon opponent. We have every intention of winning in Washington.

On playoffs:

It’s definitely a new season. These are the most important games. The sudden death and you have to win is what you work for. … It’s not like you wipe away the past. What we’ve done wrong is as important as what we’ve done right. When you win, you can’t sweep the things you did do right until the rug. We want to keep it real and at the forefront.

On turning turnovers into points:

That’s a tough one. Frankly, we had good field position after Micah Hyde’s interception. You get the looks you want, get the execution and then the penalty. We didn’t overcome the penalty. That was a big momentum play at home.

On getting up to the line:

Tempo was poor. I have to get that going. That definitely wasn’t where it needed to be.

On retaking play-calling:

A lot is made of play-calling. I have a different opinion I think than the general view of it. The change in the play-calling was more about changing the process, and the way we put together a game plan. You work together for nine years. You have certain things you stick to and believe in. When the torch gets passed, obviously that changed. Job responsibility and so forth. It’s not about what Tom was calling. I wanted to get back to the old process because I know that works. I believe in it. That’s why we changed it.

On schoolyard offense:

You don’t want to do that. Then what are we doing all the time? He’s a great player. When things break down, he makes things happen. The risk and exposure he’s been put through is too much for me. The second quarter was my disappointment. We had some things there we should’ve been able to take advantage of.