GREEN BAY, Wis. – Mike McCarthy's gut told him he should go to work for Jeff Fisher in 1999.

His dad thought he was nuts.

McCarthy, then an assistant coach with the Kansas City Chiefs, interviewed for at least two jobs that offseason: One was with the Tennessee Titans, who were still working out of trailers in Nashville after their move from Houston and then Memphis; and the other was as the Green Bay Packers' quarterbacks coach.

He left the interview with then-Titans coach Jeff Fisher convinced that was the place for him.

"I can remember telling my father when I got back, he said, 'How'd it go?'" McCarthy recalled Thursday, two days before his Packers will play Fisher's St. Louis Rams at Lambeau Field. "I said, 'Dad, you always talk about trusting your gut. If Jeff offers me the job, I think I should go to Tennessee.'

"He says, 'You're not going to go coach Brett Favre in Green Bay?' I said, 'I'm just telling you based on the way the interviews went.' He obviously told me I was nuts and I have to go to Green Bay to coach Brett Favre if you get the chance."

McCarthy did not say whether Fisher ever offered him the job. In the short term, he might have been better off going to Tennessee because he lasted only one season with the Packers because head coach Ray Rhodes and his staff were fired after going 8-8.

"Ironically, '99 I do come to Green Bay and we all know what happened after that season and Tennessee played in the Super Bowl. Go figure?'" McCarthy said. "I've always had great, great respect for Jeff Fisher."