The Mike McCarthy redemption tour commences

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After the Packers fired Mike McCarthy during the 2018 season, it was assumed he’d capture one of the various vacancies that were destined to arise after the season ended. He didn’t.

It then was assumed that he’ll get one of the head-coaching vacancies that emerge in early 2020. As the end of the 2019 season approaches — and as teams that expect to have vacancies begin to quietly line up potential replacements — McCarthy’s name has not emerged in connection with any of the current or expected openings.

So it’s time for McCarthy to take matters into his own hands. And he is, launching a media tour aimed at showcasing his efforts to prepare for his next job, if there is a next job.

So will there be one? And if so, when? Last year, the Browns didn’t interview McCarthy, even though the Browns have three former Green Bay executives with positions of influence in the Cleveland front office: John Dorsey, Alonzo Highsmith, and Eliot Wolf.

McCarthy got no other serious sniffs in the last hiring cycle. Out of sight and out of mind (until very recently) for the past year, the question becomes whether he will get any sniffs in this hiring cycle.

He has a Super Bowl win on his resume, which obviously has value. And McCarthy’s record stands at 50 games over .500, at 135-85-2. Still, McCarthy has a reputation for underachieving, given that his quarterbacks were Brett Favre (for two years) and Aaron Rodgers (for the rest), and that from 2012 through 2018 McCarthy never got back to the Super Bowl. By the end, the team wasn’t winning, and the Packers had an unmistakable atmosphere of dysfunction.

Complicating matters for McCarthy is the fact that his replacement, Matt LaFleur, has won 10 of 13 games and currently has the Packers in the No. 2 seed in the NFC.

And so McCarthy is speaking to multiple media outlets. But his words aren’t moving the needle, other than to prompt someone to notice that he’s trying to move the needle as his next shot at getting a head-coaching job approaches.

If that opportunity were definitely coming, McCarthy wouldn’t be talking. He wouldn’t need to. It remains to be seen whether McCarthy’s decision to suddenly re-enter public life will kick-start his effort to become a head coach again.