GREEN BAY, Wis. -- The biggest task for Mike McCarthy -- after he decides whether or not to fire special teams coach Shawn Slocum -- might be to figure out how to keep the Green Bay Packers' overtime loss to the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game from ruining his team for the future.
There may no more important task facing him this offseason.
"The 2015 football team will not bear the burden of what happened in 2014 or before that," McCarthy said Wednesday during his half-hour news conference to wrap up the season. "That's not the way we operate. We won't internalize the things that go on outside our building. We're going to create another opportunity to build the best football team that we can in 2015, and we're going to go for it."
The magnitude of the defeat -- one that quarterback Aaron Rodgers said after the game is "going to be a missed opportunity that we'll probably think about for the rest of my career" -- has not diminished in the 10 days since the 28-22 overtime loss occurred.
The details of the collapse -- from the fake field goal the Seahawks ran for a touchdown to safety Morgan Burnett's decision (at Julius Peppers' behest) to go down rather than return his fourth-quarter interception to a pair of three-and-out possessions with a 12-point lead in the final six minutes to the botched onside kick recovery and so on -- have been rehashed ad nauseam.
That's not likely to change between now and when training camp opens next season.
"It will be a positive," McCarthy said. "Every game you compete in is a unique experience, and the only way you benefit from that experience is you have to be able to learn from the victories and defeats. That's the mind-set of an alpha; that's the mindset of a champion. That will never change."
