GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Mike McCarthy got things started Thursday morning with a joke about having never been allowed into the posh Vince Lombardi board room on the second floor of Lambeau Field. Once someone let him in for his roundtable session with a handful of reporters who regularly cover his Green Bay Packers, the 11th-year head coach talked about his pre-training-camp summer vacation, gave a few of the beat writers an all-in-good-fun hard time, told a couple of amusing stories and seemed utterly at ease.

All of which made one wonder, “Who are you, and what have you done with the Mike McCarthy people see at the podium all week long?”

Yes, when the cameras are rolling and his news conferences are being live-streamed on the team website, McCarthy is nothing like he was Thursday. He not only avoids giving injury information, he avoids showing his true personality. An entertaining storyteller and a father to five -- “You ever been to my house? I’m a lot busier at home than I am at work,” he said with a laugh -- McCarthy puts on a blasé façade.

And it’s no accident.

"'BBD,' man. I’m boring by design,” McCarthy said. “My goal in the press conference is to be informative to the fans but at all costs try not to create questions for the locker room. That’s a mindset that I’ve had every time I walk to the podium.”

The gold standard when it comes to saying nothing when talking to the media is New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, who at the 2015 NFL meetings went out of his way to praise McCarthy. At the other end of the spectrum is colorful Buffalo Bills coach Rex Ryan. It’s easy to see which end McCarthy prefers being on, even if he's a great beers-on-the-table conversationalist away from work.

“It’s just managing the expectations for your players,” McCarthy said. “These guys have a lot on their plate that they need to do to be successful and [their head coach] making statements that’s going to cause them to answer more questions and spend more time, to me it’s a waste of time, it’s a waste of thought process, it’s a waste of energy and it’s taking people away from doing what they’re paid to do. And that’s really as simple as that.”

Then McCarthy showed a little more of that personality he normally tries to hide.

“Yeah, it’d be fun to be more personable there and sell yourself,” he said. “Hell, maybe a [I’d] get a few marketing deals out of it.

“I’m kidding. I’m blessed. I’ve got some great people I work with.”

Then, a pause.

“American Family Insurance, Cellcom ...” McCarthy rattled off with a hearty laugh. “If you can put all that in your articles, I’d appreciate it.”