When the NFL schedule came out in April, this was the stretch for which Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy believed his team would be prepared.

A prime-time opener against the Chicago Bears, two games against the rival Minnesota Vikings, a highly anticipated matchup against Dallas in mid-November -- these were the learning experiences that would carry the Packers here, as they prepare to play five times in 28 days to decide the fate of their season, beginning on Monday night against the Baltimore Ravens.

"Now, granted, we would have liked to have won more than seven, but you earn everything you get in this league," McCarthy said in an interview with the Green Bay Press-Gazette this past week.

"I think the way we're prone and the way we're working and the way we're galvanizing as a team, some of the tough lessons that we've learned, that we can all apply this to our last five games. If we stay healthy and keep improving, I feel great about where we are."

It's a long way from where the Packers were on Nov. 8, when they followed a second loss to the Vikings and their longtime quarterback, Brett Favre, with a humiliating road loss to previously winless Tampa Bay. The defeat dropped the Packers to 4-4, cast serious doubts on their playoff prospects and unleashed a torrent of criticism from fans, the media and even team President Mark Murphy, who told reporters he expected the necessary changes would be made to right the ship.

Seven days later, the Packers upset Dallas, then beat San Francisco and Detroit in a five-day span to move to 7-4 and regain the inside track in the NFC wild-card race entering their post-Thanksgiving "bye."

There were no big changes, though. No firings, no major roster moves, no fundamental shifts in approach.

It was a risk on McCarthy's part, because if the losing continued -- as it did last season, when 4-3 and 5-5 turned into 5-10, injuries and angst mounting all the while -- he'd be crucified for being hardheaded, for not adjusting in time to save the season.

Twenty-eight days is plenty of time for things to fall apart again. But so far, McCarthy's belief in his program and his players has paid dividends in the face of any head coach's greatest challenge -- hitting that low point, where a season can go one of two ways, and turning it in the right direction.

"This is the National Football League -- very few teams have gone undefeated," said Jon Gruden, the former Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach who will analyze Monday's game for ESPN.

"So, you're going to have some bumps in the road along the way. But I really give (McCarthy) credit. He's handled this barrage of media scrutiny as well as he could. You lose twice to your old quarterback, you have a sudden defeat down at Tampa where you had 5 or 6 minutes left, and you just stay the course.

"Mike's a very good head coach. He's a leader, he's a great offensive strategist, and their defense -- I think a lot of people don't want to remember this, but they've got a brand new defensive coordinator (Dom Capers), a totally new scheme, and it's going to take some time for that to gel. I really give him credit for just keeping his fist rolled up and fighting through it."

Staying the course

When the Packers got home from Tampa, McCarthy went directly to his Lambeau Field office to watch the tape and figure out what happened.

He and his staff had coached all week to avoid such a letdown after the Minnesota loss. His weekly PowerPoint presentation even was titled "TRAP GAME."

If anything, McCarthy felt he overworked players during the week, mismanaging their workload to the point that, when the Buccaneers ran off 21 unanswered points to triumph 38-28, it "looked like we didn't have anything left in our tank."

Privately, McCarthy beat himself up over that, but by the time Wednesday morning rolled around, it was business as usual.

"He stayed the same," nose tackle Ryan Pickett said. "He said we've got to learn from it. That's basically what he said -- either we're going to do this and we're going to fold, or we're going to play hard."

Clichéd as it might sound, McCarthy is a believer that every team has a path to the championship -- some far more winding and treacherous than others, but a path nonetheless. In McCarthy's mind, it's the head coach's job, particularly with a young team, to be the same person every day and stay on that path no matter the circumstances.

"I understand what goes on outside; I don't have really the time and energy to spend much focus on it," McCarthy said. "To be honest, that stuff affects your family more than it affects the individual -- that's been my experience. It's nice when people say nice things about you, and it hurts your family when they say things that aren't so nice.

"I know we all have the ability within the personality to swing a little high or a little low. But I think when you swing, your team plays like that."

There have been subtle differences in the Packers' approach since the Tampa Bay game, most notable a shift to a short passing game on offense that's helped cover up protection problems that marred the season's first half. But several other issues continue to crop up game after game -- penalties, kick-coverage breakdowns and inconsistent red-zone offense, to name three -- and the Packers haven't exactly built their record against the NFL's elite.

Four of their seven wins have come against bottom-feeders St. Louis, Detroit and Cleveland, and only one has come against a team that currently has a winning record (Dallas, 8-3). To reach the playoffs, the Packers probably will have to beat at least one more, with road trips to Pittsburgh (6-5) and Arizona (7-4) looming in addition to Monday's tilt against Baltimore (6-5), another potential "trap" game six days later at Chicago (4-7) and the home finale against Seattle (4-7).

Over the same stretch last year, the Packers saw their playoff hopes fade as a losing streak reached five, with four of the defeats coming against non-playoff teams.

Asked if he applied lessons from that collapse to last month's struggles, McCarthy said, "Oh, absolutely. Being a head coach, it's phenomenal what you're able to learn year to year, because it's about people. It's about developing people, it's about motivating people, it's about enhancing the group dynamics of your team and keeping them on the road.

"That's why the Tampa Bay game -- yeah, we slid off the road for a little bit, but let's get back on and keep driving."

The road ahead

Arguably the biggest roadblocks the Packers must get past in the stretch run are the injuries, big and small, that have plagued them all season.

Twenty-six players -- a little less than half the 53-man roster -- have seen action in all 11 games, with 10 players starting all of them. Those numbers don't begin to illustrate all the practice time missed by starters, particularly along the ever-morphing offensive line.

The worst blows came against San Francisco on Nov. 22, when cornerback Al Harris and linebacker Aaron Kampman sustained season-ending knee injuries. Their less-experienced replacements -- cornerback Tramon Williams, new nickel cornerback Jarrett Bush and rookie linebacker Brad Jones -- no doubt will be tested more in the coming weeks than they were on Thanksgiving Day at Detroit.

There are parallels to last season, when the defense gradually crumbled under the losses of end Cullen Jenkins (torn pectoral muscle), rush end Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila (cut for ineffective play) and linebacker Nick Barnett (knee). That played a more important role than many realize in McCarthy's decision to jettison defensive coordinator Bob Sanders, whose rigid 4-3 scheme made players adjust (e.g. the Charles Woodson-at-safety disaster) because coaches couldn't.

"We have more scheme, more areas for using different players -- that was all part of the planning for injuries," McCarthy said. "If you're getting there with the four-man rush and all of a sudden two of your top linemen go down, you just can't continue to four-man rush.

"We're planning to win the game. I'm not a play (not) to lose guy. I think that's been reflected the way we've played. You can play not to lose and win eight games in this league, and if things go right, maybe you win 10. We're trying to win a championship."

Ten wins most likely would be enough to get the Packers into the postseason, though, and that means winning three of five over the next four weeks.

Staying the course worked last month, but what happens if adversity strikes again in December? A loss on Monday alone would change the situation dramatically, putting the Packers in perhaps a four-way tie at 7-5 with three of four games remaining away from Lambeau Field.

McCarthy doesn't like dealing in hypotheticals, but this much is certain: his team is playing confidently, the group left standing is relatively healthy and there's no shortage of attuned observers who believe the Packers' talent will carry them into the postseason. But only time will tell whether the hard lessons the Packers have learned indeed will pay dividends these next 28 days.

"Fortunately, I think, for Mike, he's got a veteran defensive coordinator in Dom Capers who's been a head coach," Gruden said. "Mike's been in the league a long time, and he's got a young quarterback I really think that's one of the strengths of the NFC right now. He's got a lot of confidence in Aaron (Rodgers), and Aaron has a lot of confidence in Mike. They've got such skilled receivers and an MVP candidate on defense (Woodson).

"He's got a great nucleus of people to turn to when the weather gets rough. That storm blows in, I'd call Aaron Rodgers and Donald Driver and Greg Jennings and Charles Woodson -- there's plenty of guys you can call up into your office and say, 'Hey, man, let's fight through this. Let's go guys.' And I think they've responded."