If Green Bay Packers players got to vote, Jim Bates might be their next coach. Bates, the Packers' current defensive coordinator, will interview with general manager Ted Thompson next week for the head coaching job that opened when Mike Sherman was fired. Bates has the support of his defensive players -- just as he did in Miami at the end of the 2004 season, when Bates was the Dolphins' interim coach. He knows that isn't enough, but it can't hurt. "Players don't determine who's the next coach," Bates said Thursday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Green Bay. "It's always a positive, I think, that the players believe in me." Thompson announced Sherman's firing on Monday. Players expressed support for Sherman, but many said if he had to be replaced, they'd like to play for Bates. "I think there would be a lot of support for him to be a head coach," linebacker Nick Barnett said Monday. "If that's the route that Ted Thompson and the organization want to take, I'm sure there would be a lot of support for him."