GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Green Bay Packers president Mark Murphy doesn't believe it's the right time to make any major changes to the team's football operation, but that doesn't mean he's pleased with the way the season has gone so far.
With the Packers mired in a four-game losing streak and in jeopardy of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2008, Murphy told WTMJ radio in Milwaukee that he feels the same way about the team's 4-6 record as most fans do.
"I do hear from a lot of fans. And I tell fans: Like them, I'm disappointed," Murphy said. "Certainly, the season hasn't gone the way we had all hoped, but there's a lot of football left to be played. And the other thing I tell people is, you've got to look at Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy's track record."
Thompson has been the Packers general manager since 2005, and he hired McCarthy as coach in 2006. They're on a run of seven straight playoff appearances, tying the New England Patriots for the longest active streak in the NFL. But with six games remaining, the Packers are two games out of first place in the NFC North.
Last week, a team spokesman told ESPN.com that Murphy would not comment on this year's team, because he "defers football matters to Ted and Mike during the season." Thompson has not spoken to reporters since Aug. 30 and also was not made available after an interview request earlier this month.
"We've been through difficult stretches before," Murphy said. "We've had consistent success, and it's hard to achieve that in the NFL, but I do sympathize with our fans. They want us to win, they want us to play better, and we've just got to work through a difficult patch. I'm optimistic and I'm hopeful. We've done it in the past and, hopefully, we can do it again."
Both Thompson and McCarthy have contracts that run through the 2018 season.
Thompson oversees the football operation and reports to Murphy, who acts on behalf of the team's seven-member executive committee. Murphy said the team's public-ownership structure, which includes more than 5 million shares of stock held by more than 360,000 shareholders, does not impact the way football decisions are made.
"The [public perception] of that is, the Packers are really harmed because they don't have an individual owner who can go in and fire somebody," Murphy said. "Well, if you look across the league, when those individual owners do things like that, it usually doesn't turn out very well. The answer isn't just to fire people midseason, especially, [given that] we've had a run of success.
"Our coaches and personnel people and Ted and Mike have shown in the past they can turn things around. I think that taking that approach certainly makes more sense than just firing people to fire people."