One of These Guys Is Not Mike McCarthy

In a hilarious case of mistaken Twitter identity, many ticked-off fans believe agent Mike McCartney is actually former Packers coach and current Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Whether it’s Green Bay or Dallas, the scorn fired at Mike McCarthy on Twitter comes fast and furious.

Especially furious.

In the wake of Green Bay’s loss at Seattle in November 2018, a Packers fan named Robby fired off several tweets to the Twitter-verified account, including one stating McCarthy “needs to get canned.”

Mike’s reply? “I’m looking back on 2018 and thinking it’s been a great year. Not disappointed at all. Hope I don’t get canned.”

After another horrendous performance by the Cowboys last week, a fan by the name of Austin demanded the coach “figure this **** out.”

“You think I need to figure it out? You figure it out!” Mike replied.

Unless he’s got a burner account, Mike McCarthy is not on Twitter. Rather, the fans’ anger is directed at Mike McCartney, whose Twitter handle is @MikeMcCartney7. McCartney is one of the top agents in the NFL and the man who represents two members of the Packers, kicker Mason Crosby and tight end Jace Sternberger.

He’s also got one heck of a sense of humor.

That fans can’t figure out that McCartney is not McCarthy is rather remarkable.

“It definitely started when Mike was in Green Bay,” McCartney said. “I can’t remember exactly but somebody said, ‘You need to run more screens.’ So, I thought, ‘Let me be clever’ and I replied something to the effect, ‘Let me consult with my staff on that. That’s a good idea.’ And then he was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, you just replied to me during the game.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m a talented guy.’ I was just trying to have fun. You know, Twitter – especially on gameday – is so nasty. I’m getting pummeled right now and people are mean and they swear a lot. They wear their emotions on their Twitter sleeves on gameday. It’s like, can we lighten the mood a little bit?”

Coach Mike McCarthy (left) and agent Mike McCartney. (Photo courtesy Mike McCartney)

Mission accomplished. Whenever McCarthy’s teams have stumbled, McCartney’s replies to ticked-off fans have provided a steady stream of comedy, whether it’s fantasy-football demands or proclamations that McCarthy should be ashamed of himself and won in Green Bay only because of Aaron Rodgers.

“I think when Mike was in Green Bay, I sort of was like, ‘OK, these people think I’m the coach; let me play along,’” McCartney said. “Now, I’m going to answer in a way where they don’t know if I’m the coach or this other guy.’ So, I kind of admitted I was the coach in Green Bay. I haven’t really admitted I’m the coach in Dallas.”

The case of mistaken identity pre-dates Twitter by a couple decades. From 1992 through 1997, McCartney was a scout for the Chicago Bears. At one point during that period, when McCarthy was an up-and-coming assistant coach with the Kansas City Chiefs, they stayed at the same hotel while at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. In that time before everyone had cell phones, the only way to connect with somebody at a hotel was to call the hotel.

“I remember getting a couple calls with people leaving messages for him that went to my room. One of us got mail delivered to the other guy. So, we ended up laughing about it back then in the mid-’90s,” McCartney recalled. “When A.J. Hawk’s wife threw a surprise retirement party a couple years ago in Columbus, Mike was there. I said hello to him and I said, ‘I don’t know if you know this but a lot of people think I’m you on Twitter.’ He looked at me like, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

“Shoot, when he won the Super Bowl [with the Packers in 2010], I had a prominent head coach text me, ‘Hey, congrats on the win. I’m so excited for you.’ I’ve had people from the league office call me thinking it’s him. Somebody in the organization four or five times has called me and he says, ‘What’s up?’ And I’m like, ‘Dude, you called me. What’s going on?’ And he says, ‘Oh, f, I called the wrong Mike.’ I had a head coach recently text me, ‘Hey, need to talk to you. It’s not about a trade.’”

As the son of legendary Colorado coach Bill McCartney, Mike McCartney has been around the game throughout his life. When his dad was the football and basketball coach at Divine Child High School in Dearborn, Mich., McCartney recalls riding on the bus with the team.

“You remember on buses where they would have a string alongside the top that you could pull down like an alarm for the bus driver?” he recalled. “That was a long time ago. I used to pull those down and the players would be like, ‘Pull that down, Little Mac!’ to get my dad all riled up.”

Eventually, Bill McCartney got a job under the legendary Bo Schembechler at the University of Michigan. And then, in 1982, Bill McCartney got the opportunity of a lifetime to take over as coach at Colorado.

It turned Mike’s world upside down.

“My senior year in high school, June 10th, my dad got hired by Colorado to be the head coach,” he recalled. “I was probably going to be captain of all three sports at my small, Catholic league high school in Ann Arbor, and the offense was going to be built around me as a quarterback. June 10th, he gets hired and we’re off to Boulder and I’m a throwing quarterback going to an option team. But there was no way I was going to miss out on my dad coaching.”

From 1987 through 1989, Mike joined his father as the Buffaloes’ quarterbacks coach and assistant recruiting coordinator. The 1989 team played for the national championship.

“I grew up thinking that was normal,” he said. “Those were precious days to be involved in a turnaround like my dad led at Colorado, going from a 1-10 team to a national champion team.”

After spending the 1990 and 1991 seasons as an assistant at North Carolina, McCartney joined the Bears as a scout. In 1998, he became the Philadelphia Eagles’ director of pro personnel. He helped resurrect the Eagles but there was something missing in his life. It was his family, and that led to him making a life-changing decision.

“I was in my third year in Philly and we got beat by the Giants in a playoff game,” McCartney recalled. “I was driving from North Jersey to South Jersey and I started taking inventory of my life. I often tell people, ‘Don’t take inventory after a tough loss. Don’t do it.’ I did. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I was going to wake up in 20 years and wonder who raised my boys. At the time, they were 4, 2 and 1 and I was never home. I’d get up at 4:30, I’d get to the office and have a little quiet time, watch the tape all day long. I’d try to get home to put them to bed. A few minutes here and there putting them to bed, look at my wife and I’d fall asleep.

“It reminds me of what my mom would say every Aug. 1. ‘Football’s here; goodbye, dear.’ We wouldn’t see my dad for months. Even when he was home, he’d look right through you. I was living the same life. Even when I was home, my mind was on trying to win a Super Bowl. I remember thinking, ‘Should two generations of McCartney men miss out on their dad?’ I made a tough decision, and we had some unrest with the Eagles, so that probably helped. Then it was, ‘What I am going to do with my life?’ I’m in my mid-30s. I’ve been trained to study football. I didn’t have any other skills, to be honest. I knew football, so I thought I had something unique to offer players and knew a lot about the agent community.”

McCartney joined Priority Sports as an agent. Two decades later, he’s still there. And that’s allowed him to be there for his family. One summer, he figures he watched 100 of his kids’ baseball games, a luxury he never could have enjoyed as a scout.

“I might be on my phone, I might be doing some recruiting or contract talks or whatever, but I wasn’t missing games,” McCartney, the father of three sons and one daughter, said.

McCartney’s life in football includes countless highlights. On the field, there was Colorado quarterback Kordell Stewart’s Hail Mary to stun Michigan in 1994 and client Josh McCown’s touchdown pass in the 2003 finale that helped Arizona stun Minnesota, knock the Vikings out of the playoffs and hand Green Bay the division title. As an agent, the highlights are about relationships and people.

Agent Mike McCartney (left) and Packers kicker Mason Crosby. (Photo courtesy Mike McCartney)

“When you’re working for Mason Crosby, it’s easy to get excited about this business,” McCartney said. “Jace Sternberger, I’d love for him to have a few more reps, but his future is so bright and he’s such a good dude. I’ve just been really blessed to work with really good people. To see Jason Wright, a guy I represented for eight years, now 10 years after he retires becomes the president of the Washington Football Team, that’s really cool. Working with good people means the world to me.”

Unfortunately – or fortunately for the rest of us – McCartney sees the worst of people on social media. McCartney’s Twitter feed was much quieter last year, when McCarthy was out of the NFL. Back in the game this season with the Cowboys, McCarthy was supposed to be the man to lead a star-studded roster back to greatness. Instead, Dallas is 1-3 and given up the most points in the NFL.

There’s not much McCartney can do about it, despite fan recommendations to bring back Wade Phillips to run the defense. McCartney’s only affiliation with the Cowboys’ defense is being the agent of longtime linebacker Sean Lee.

“The last few weeks, especially with their defense struggling, man, I’m getting hammered,” McCartney said with a laugh. “People are vicious. They’re just vicious.”

And they’re getting more vicious by the week. Last week, the Cleveland Browns scored 34 unanswered points to beat McCarthy’s Cowboys 49-38. Afterward, a fan by the name of Jeremy hopped on Twitter and vented his frustration toward McCarthy.

“Give us one good reason to not fire you,” he tweeted.

McCartney’s response was perfect.

“I still haven’t lost a game in my coaching career.”