Head coach Mike McCarthy calls the shots for the Green Bay Packers’ offense.

When he looks back at the NFC Championship Game play sheet, unspent bullets are everywhere.

By resisting the temptation in Sunday’s loss to the Seattle Seahawks to go for the jugular, by passing on those kill shots, McCarthy propped the door open for the most improbable comeback in Seattle playoff history.

In two possessions in the fourth quarter, McCarthy called one pass play in a span of six plays. His objective to run the clock is more than just understandable — it is by the book NFL strategy, thinking amplified by the poor performance of the Seahawks’ offense.

Getting the ball back with 6:53 remaining, the Packers ran running back James Starks twice for 6 yards and then quarterback Aaron Rodgers threw an incompletion that stopped the clock. The Packers’ defense got the ball right back — safety Morgan Burnett picked off a Russell Wilson pass on a ball bobbled by wide receiver Jermaine Kearse — but the Packers tapped the brakes again.

McCarthy called three consecutive running plays that lost 4 yards and punted the ball back to the Seahawks, who completed the largest comeback in a conference championship game.

“Not very good,” Rodgers said. “When you do that, that’s how you lose games. We’ve finished out games before in four-minute (drills). We had a chance … to do some things.”

Rodgers was asked if he could elaborate. “No, I can’t.”

He added, “It’s a missed opportunity I’ll probably think about the rest of my career. We can’t blame anybody but ourselves. … We weren’t as aggressive as we usually are.”

By contrast, when Seattle received the overtime kickoff after a furious rally to close the game on a 22-3 run, Seahawks offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell turned quarterback Wilson loose. Wilson hit wide receiver Doug Baldwin for 10 yards on second down and was sacked on the next set of downs after running back Marshawn Lynch gained 4 yards running left. On third-and-7 at his own 30, Wilson lofted a 35-yarder to Baldwin, then found Kearse for the 35-yard, walk-off touchdown on the next play.

“(Seattle defensive end) Michael Bennett, his penetration was a factor,” McCarthy said. “If you want to question the play-calling … I came in here to run the ball. One statistic I had as far as a target to hit — 20 attempts.”

“They made the big plays.”

The Packers’ early chances in the red zone ended with fourth-and-1 situations McCarthy opted to turn into points — field goals by Mason Crosby of 18 and 19 yards, officially. That left the score 6-0 when it could have been a 14-0 advantage. But McCarthy, whose team converted nine of 13 fourth-down attempts in the regular season, didn’t want to throw a knockout punch and miss.

“We gave it away,” Rodgers said.