I agree that Mennenga (can we fix the spelling of his name in the title??) should probably be let go, but two critical things need to be in place for that to happen:
1. The head coach has to be strong enough to do it
2. You actually need to have a better, capable coach ready to take his place
Matt LeFleur has been pretty good at his job so far. However, terminating someone's job is a completely different animal. Unless you are the president who takes pride in firing people, most people find it difficult on a personal level to do it especially for the first time. You can all blather about how it's his job and what-not, but my guess is that the majority of forum posters have not had to personally look someone in the eye and tell them that you are firing them from their job. Unless you hate the person or they deserve it for misconduct, it is hard to do. I am not questioning LeFleur's ability, but merely pointing out that I don't think that he has fired anyone yet except for when he first became head coach....letting Mike McCarthy hold-overs go.
Second, I don't know one thing about Assistant Special Teams Coach Maurice Drayton or ST Quality Control Coach Rayna Stewart. They look like good guys on the Packers.com website, but its possible that they are 100% in-step with how Mennenga runs our special teams. If LeFleur isn't confident that one of those guys can lead the group through the rest of the season, then who does it. Most special teams coaches are employed with another team/university right now.
Firing Mennenga is one thing, but replacing him with a better coach is the key. Firing for the sake of firing is knee-jerk and ridiculously stupid.
Except if what Fredrik says about Mark Murphy is true, that tells me that we got a CEO micromanaging coaching staff hiring and firing decisions. It would confirm my suspicions too that Matt LaFleur won't be able to let Pettine go either unless Murphy allows it.
This special teams incompetence has dogged this organization for I'd say the better part of about 23 years. Have to go back to the days when Nolan Cromwell was our STC under Mike Holmgren to look at a Packers unit that was always sound and disciplined in that category. Granted he had some all pros that helped like our punter and kickoff specialist Craig Hentrich, and of course our MVP return man Desmond Howard. But Wolf and Holmgren definitely weren't about to let that side of the team deteriorate under their watch.
But ever since Wolf left the building I'd say it has suffered because of both coaches and upper management refusing to do anything about it. Even in 2010, as another poster mentioned, it was bad. Yeah, we won the superbowl in spite of that, but just think of how it cost us in other years. 2014 being the perfect example. Our team was great that year like it is this year, but all it took was one game, the nfccg for the ST to blow it and cost us a chance to get Rodgers his second ring.
I just feel like right now we're in a similar situation.
Chances are we're going to face the Saints again in the playoffs, and if it's a close one, you'd better believe Sean Payton is going to look to pull some gadgetry out of it be it a fake punt or fg. If I know Mennenga's group has discipline problems, I'm definitely going to test them.
Yeah, we do need to do more than just fire a bad STC, we need to open up the wallet and pay an elite coach to fix it once and for all. Bring the pressure down on Murphy and Gutes heads to do this.
