Defense Stops Henry, Titans in Their Snowy Tracks
GREEN BAY, Wis. – On Jan. 19, San Francisco’s Raheem Mostert rushed for 220 yards and four touchdowns in embarrassing the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game.
On Nov. 1, Minnesota’s Dalvin Cook rushed for 163 yards and scored four total touchdowns as the Vikings stunned the Packers.
In the court of public opinion, those two putrid performances spoke volumes about the state of the run defense.
On Sunday night at Lambeau Field, the Tennessee Titans rushed for 156 yards. But, as the legendary wordsmith Mark Twain liked to say, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Fueled by that maligned run defense, Green Bay dominated the No. 1 scoring team in the league in a 40-14 triumph at Lambeau Field. Afterward, quarterback Aaron Rodgers went so far as to call it a “championship-style defense.”
The run defense, which had ranked an under-the-radar ninth in the NFL against the run since getting shredded by Cook, packed a punch against Derrick Henry, a running back used to running for a lot of yards while running through a lot of defenders.
Henry, the runaway rushing leader who had put himself in position to become only the eighth player in NFL history to finish a season with 2,000 rushing yards, managed 98 yards on 23 carries. His streak of nine consecutive road games with 100-plus rushing yards was stopped one game short of Barry Sanders’ NFL record.
It was a winning performance for Green Bay but a loser for bettors who took the over of 113.5 yards.
While Henry broke nine tackles by our unofficial count, his longest run went for only 10 yards because defenders swarmed to the ball. The defensive line controlled the line of scrimmage and the outside linebackers set the edges to limit Henry’s running room.
“When you turn in the film, you can see that Tennessee is a good team. That team is physical on both ends of the ball,” said linebacker Christian Kirksey, who had a sack and an interception. “We know what Derrick Henry brings to the table. We watch him each and every week on highlight tapes, so we already knew that he was going to come in and try to run the ball and try to have a big game against us. All week, we just reiterated just to fly around and swarm as a defense and that’s what we did tonight.”
With Henry under wraps, the Packers made life miserable for quarterback Ryan Tannehill. Tannehill entered the game with a league-long streak of five consecutive games with 100-plus passer ratings. Receivers AJ Brown and Corey Davis were closing in on 1,000-yard seasons.
Instead, Tannehill streak was snapped emphatically. He was only 11-of-24 passing for 121 yards with one touchdown, two interceptions and a 40.5 rating. Brown caught 4-of-8 passes for 43 yards. Davis didn’t catch any passes. The Titans had only one play of 20-plus yards – a 45-yard read-option keeper by Tannehill that briefly pulled them within 19-14 in the third quarter.
Added together, the Titans’ streak of five consecutive games with 30-plus points and 420-plus yards – tied for the longest stretch in NFL history – came to a crashing halt. Tennessee mustered only 260 yards.
“It’s huge, and it’s crazy because I know, speaking for me, and I’m sure I can speak for everybody else, too, I feel like we still haven’t played our best game yet defensively,” said safety Darnell Savage, who recorded his fourth interception in a span of five games. “We’re just continuing to keep trying to get better each and every week. Keep watching the film, try to improve stuff, but we still feel like there’s a lot more out there for us to get.”
The defense’s performance against statistically the top offense in the NFL has put the Packers one victory away from earning the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs.
“That’s a really good offense, really, across the board,” coach Matt LaFleur said. “They’ve got great skilled players. To hold a team like that that is that explosive to 14 points and 260 yards, I think that was a hell of a performance by our defense. I just sense a different energy with our defense. And guys are flying around, making plays, making plays on the ball. We had 10 passes defensed tonight. We were getting after them up front, putting pressure on the quarterback and that’s what it’s going to take. Because from here on out, it’s nothing but playoff-caliber teams.”
