GREEN BAY, Wis. -- No wonder Mike McCarthy came out swinging this week, when the Green Bay Packers' coach vigorously defended his program.

Who else was going to do it?

Not general manager Ted Thompson and not team president Mark Murphy.

The last time anyone heard from Thompson was on Aug. 30, two days before the preseason finale, when he conducted the last of his NFL-mandated sessions with reporters. He didn’t even meet with the media after he made the roster cut to 53 on Sept. 3. There’s nothing in the rules established between the league and the Pro Football Writers of America that says Thompson has to talk during the season, so he doesn’t. A request to interview him last week about the state of the team was turned down by the Packers.

The same goes for Murphy, who through a team spokesperson said he would “respectfully decline” an interview request made this week because, the spokesperson said, he “defers football matters to Ted and Mike during the season.”

That wasn’t always the case. The Packers were in a similar situation during the 2009 season, when they were 4-4 at the midway point after a disappointing road loss at Tampa Bay, and Murphy agreed to an interview with the Green Bay Press-Gazette. The full story based on that interview is no longer available online, but excerpts can be found here. In the interview, Murphy alluded to "changes that are needed to get us to where we want to be at the end of the season."

“You really need to wait until the whole season is completed," Murphy said at the time. "I’ve seen it both ways. Teams get off to great starts and collapse, or struggle early and play well at the end. But obviously I’m disappointed in where we are now, especially the loss to Tampa, very disappointing to everybody, but we’ll see how we respond.”

That season, they responded by going 7-1 in the second half of the season to make the playoffs. It started the current run of seven straight playoff appearances, including one Super Bowl title, which brings us back to the 2016 season. At 4-5 after Sunday’s loss at Tennessee, the questions from 2009 have returned.

However you took McCarthy’s money line from earlier this week – “Let’s just state the facts: I’m a highly successful NFL head coach” – it’s hard to blame him for getting a little fired up every once in awhile in the face of high expectations.

"It’s really the job; it doesn’t change," McCarthy said of the expectations "Frankly, handling success is the biggest challenge in this league. I think it’s one of the biggest challenges in life. When you’re a Green Bay Packer, you’re expected to win, and more importantly you’re supposed to do it the right way. We get that. It’s not gone the way we like the last three weeks. Ultimately I’m the one responsible for that. I like the vision, I like the plan and more importantly I like the energy and focus."

Murphy regularly praises the Thompson-McCarthy partnership when he speaks at offseason events such as the owners meetings in March or the Packers shareholders meeting in July.

“The NFL record for most consecutive years in the playoffs is nine, so that gives you an idea how difficult this kind of success is to achieve,” Murphy said this past summer. “That’s a real tribute to Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy and their staffs, both personnel staff and coaching staff, and the great relationship that Ted and Mike have.”

Nothing should be read into the silence from Thompson and Murphy this time around, but given all that McCarthy has accomplished during his 11 years as head coach – 108 wins, eight playoff appearances, three times in the NFC title game with two different quarterbacks and the one Super Bowl – it doesn’t seem too much to ask for someone to come to his defense when things aren’t going well.

Former NFL general manager Bill Polian, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and current ESPN analyst, did that on Wednesday during an appearance on SportsCenter.

So did Aaron Rodgers, when the quarterback called the scrutiny of McCarthy “ridiculous.” It’s the same word that McCarthy used to try to fend off criticism of Rodgers earlier in the year. Whatever else goes into their relationship, they clearly stand up for each other in public.