As Total Packers transitions to new ownership, we ought to take a moment and consider the “legacy” of Monty’s enterprise. Yes, there’s a very definite legacy. Beyond the outrageousness and profaneness, an overwhelming theme emerges.
I can only speak to the last three years or so, but the rumble of the site throughout that time was unmistakable: Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy had outlived their usefulness and had to go. Mission accomplished! (Throw in Dom Capers too, if you’d like.)
Of all the critics, no one more passionately, more resolutely, and more repetitiously sounded the alarm, and pleaded with management, to get a new GM and head coach. The clamor was well underway by the 2015 season, and it ramped up over the ensuing three years of futility – by which point even the most supportive fans had a good idea of where the Pack was headed. Six, nine, and one probably would not have been the team’s low point had McCarthy stayed on. I think it’s all up from here.
How big a role did TP play in these better-late-than-never sackings can be debated. Most TP postings are viewed by from about 1,000 to 5,000 fans. Though not a huge number compared to some other media sources, the relentlessness of TP’s calls for action took hold. Almost every week, TP and its pack of rabid readers cited the awful decisions, and inactions, being made by MM and TT.
Our leader and his little band of zealots of course proved to be right! Too bad fans had to unnecessarily suffer through two losing seasons – and third place finishes in a four-team division. And by the way, were it not for the weakness of the NFC North Division, the long slow decline of the team would have been more evident to those not as observant as Monty. Such is life.
Now, TP’s advocacy is considered the conventional wisdom, but that wasn’t the case until recently. Yeah, we were telling it like it was when most others were either still in denial or were just starting to nibble at the edges of reality.
The rest of the media and blogosphere are only now pontificating about how McCarthy had “lost the team”, how the offense needed to be brought into the twenty-first century, and how the young studs like Sean McVay and Matt Nagy had left Big Mike in the dust. But TP had been singing that tune for a good 36 months.
Similarly, after treating him as an icon for years, much of the media suddenly began writing that Ted Thompson was an anachronism, that he finally had lost his touch on draft days, that we needed a GM who actually was open to signing free agents, that TT didn’t value athleticism, and so on. TP had been saying that, in no uncertain terms, going back to at least 2015.
And what did Monty get for his troubles? In 2016, the team’s attorneys filed suit to put him out of business.
(https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2016-1455). Once again, Monty proved to be right, and the corporate and establishment guys proved to be wrong.
Welcome aboard to the rest of you media – wish you had joined us a few years ago. And take a bow, all you TP commenters who beat the drum along with Monty.
Ain’t no doubt: things are looking up in Green Bay in large part due to the foresight and determination of one superfan, Montgomery McMahon!