Not even ten days ago, the Packers were playing a football game.

Since then, the Packers have rushed headlong into their most pivotal offseason in more than a decade. The complexion of the franchise has changed dramatically in the process.

Gone is Ted Thompson, the general manager who (not uncontroversially) shepherded the team through a period of tremendous success. With him departed Dom Capers, the even more controversial defensive coordinator. Capers received all of the blame for the Packers’ defensive shortcomings and none of the credit when he put out solid to very good defensive units for most of his tenure in Green Bay.

In their wake sits a reorganized power structure with one man at the top: Mark Murphy.

In his ten years with the team, Murphy has largely been a silent partner, content to oversee the increasingly profitable business side of the organization.

Now, after a series of events precipitated by one calamitous hit in Minnesota, Murphy’s contributions to the organization are laid bare.

Murphy is the one who set up a power structure that deviates from what’s been successful in Green Bay for more than a generation. It was Murphy who picked the general manager who sits at the center of it all.

It’s Murphy who chose Brian Gutekunst and Russ Ball over Eliot Wolf.

It was Murphy who said he doesn’t want to make football decisions but decided to keep the authority to hire and fire a head coach.

It was Murphy who claimed he had no desire to micromanage but said he was planning to discuss game plans with his head coach.

And it will be Murphy who’s responsible for pulling the trigger on dismissing any one of the men he’s put in place should they falter.

This plan may yet succeed. Gutekunst has the endorsement of Murphy’s predecessor Bob Harlan on top of anonymous praise from throughout the league. Ball is as sharp a contract negotiator as there is anywhere. McCarthy, for all his foibles, is a highly successful NFL coach.

But based on the events of the last week, we know who to point to if this goes belly up. The Packers are now all about Mark Murphy. Let’s hope he’s ready.