Green Bay was reeling Monday after blowing a fourth-quarter lead to a previously winless Tampa Bay team starting a rookie quarterback.
Now 4-4 at the season's halfway mark, a team expected to make a serious playoff push now finds itself on the verge of a free fall going into Sunday's home game against Dallas.
The problems are the same: Too many sacks allowed, not enough pass rush and costly special teams lapses. But as fans holler for change on barstools and sports radio call-in shows across Wisconsin, they probably won't be happy to hear that Packers coach Mike McCarthy is calmly staying the course.
McCarthy maintains that the mistakes are correctable and insists the season isn't a lost cause.
"We're disappointed and we're 4-4," McCarthy said. "We're at the halfway point of our season. I'm very disappointed, but that's our work to this point. I take full responsibility. I'm at the point of this football team. I have all the confidence in this team that we'll get ready and we'll move on and win a big game here at home against Dallas."
But the Packers might have to face the Cowboys without outside linebacker Aaron Kampman and right tackle Mark Tauscher.
Kampman said he sustained a concussion after taking a blow to the head on the fourth play of the game, but wasn't taken out of the game until the fourth quarter. Speaking briefly to reporters Monday afternoon, Kampman said he still wasn't feeling quite right but just needed rest.
"I've been better," Kampman said.
His availability this week remains unclear.
Kampman played into the fourth quarter before coaches realized he wasn't OK. Even amid increased awareness about the dangers of head injuries in football, defensive coordinator Dom Capers said coaches trust players to tell them when they're not feeling right.
"You have to kind of depend on them, you know," Capers said. "And most guys that play this game, they think they can just shake it off. It's part of the game, you know. To a certain degree they can shake it off, it's no problem. And I think that's probably the approach that Aaron took until maybe in the second half, he saw that things weren't right."
Tauscher, meanwhile, sprained his left knee -- the same knee that sustained a major injury in December. Tauscher tore his left anterior cruciate ligament and was out of football until re-signing with the Packers last month.
McCarthy said Tauscher has a "slight" chance of playing this week.
That, plus the back injury that landed center Jason Spitz on injured reserve over the weekend, leaves the Packers to once again shuffle an offensive line that has given up a league-worst 37 sacks
-- including six on Sunday, all in the second half.
McCarthy said the Packers aren't about to change they way their linemen are coached. Or, for that matter, who's doing the coaching.
