Three Days Until Kickoff: Three Reasons to Worry vs. Titans
GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers (11-3) will host the Tennessee Titans (10-4) on Sunday night at Lambeau Field. After a Charmin-soft stretch in the schedule, it’s not hard to find three reasons to worry for this matchup of NFL heavyweights.
1. Speaking of Heavyweights
At 247 pounds and with 4.54 speed in the 40, running back Derrick Henry is the equivalent of a freight train. He leads the NFL with 1,679 rushing yards. That’s 195 yards more than Minnesota’s second-ranked Dalvin Cook, 609 yards more than Jacksonville’s third-ranked James Robinson and 711 yards more than Green Bay’s fourth-ranked Aaron Jones.
According to Sports Info Solutions, Henry has 1,080 yards after contact. Only Cook has more rushing yards in total than Henry has after contact. Not that Henry can’t barrel through the big guys – he’s averaging a ridiculous 5.8 yards per carry on runs up the middle – but the offense is designed to get Henry on the perimeter against the defensive backs he outweighs by 30 or 40 pounds.
The Packers have not tackled well this season, though they have tackled better the past few games. Henry, of course, is a much bigger challenge than, say, Carolina’s Mike Davis and Detroit’s Adrian Peterson.
“Yeah, it’s a challenge,” defensive coordinator Mike Pettine said of tackling Henry. “The biggest mistake that I think defenders make against him is they underestimate his speed. Too many guys end up falling off because they’ve underestimated the speed and they end up trailing. We’ve emphasized to swarm this week. It’s very difficult to ask one guy, ‘Let’s go ahead and get him on the ground.’ You’ve got to get his feet stopped, and you’ve got to swarm to it, you’ve got to attack the football, and all your typical run fundamentals.”
2. Over Your Head
If the hulking Henry provides the body blows, it’s the Ryan Tannehill-led play-action game that delivers the knockout. For the Packers, it’s going to take all 11 defenders to stop Henry. That puts the linebackers and safeties, in particular, in a predicament. They have to play aggressively vs. the run but, if they play too aggressively, Tannehill will fake the handoff and deal the ball to big-play receivers A.J. Brown and Corey Davis. He’s not a frequent long-ball thrower but he’s not a dink-and-dunker, game-manager, either. While he ranks 18th in pass attempts, he’s sixth in passes in the 10- to 19-yard tier.
“That’s what makes this offense so difficult to defend,” Pettine said. “You think of it as one-dimensional and it really isn’t. Because it starts with the run, and then the run opens everything up. The play-pass, just some of the wide-open looks they’ve been able to get.”
Tannehill is averaging 10.2 yards per play-action attempt, tops in the league, according to Pro Football Focus. It’s a big part of the Titans’ offense, with 37.4 percent of his dropbacks being play-action – also No. 1 in the league. In yards per pass route, Green Bay’s Davante Adams is No. 1, Davis is No. 2 and Brown is No. 5.
This week’s preparation will be vital.
“You’re following your keys,” safety Adrian Amos said. “If you’re in man, you’re watching your man. That’s really it. When you’re in different zones, you have a key based on who you’re in zone off of and everybody has a different key. Linebackers are keying certain linemen or tight ends, or corners on their receivers, stuff like that. Everybody has their own keys and reads.”
3. Back to Business
Other than a fifth-ranked 21 takeaways, there’s really nothing menacing about the Titans’ defense. It ranks 21st in points allowed, 27th in yards, 23rd in yards per play, 32nd in sack percentage and, critically, 32nd on third down and 30th in the red zone.
Part of Green Bay’s offensive struggles last week stemmed from poor protection of quarterback Aaron Rodgers. With Jadeveon Clowney on injured reserve and Vic Beasley released after being a free-agent bust, the Titans have a league-low 14 sacks. Tennessee’s secondary has hung in there pretty well, all things considered – it’s No. 18 in yards allowed per attempt, No. 20 in completion percentage and No. 18 in opponent passer rating – but Rodgers should be poised for a strong game, so long as last week’s message of patience has resonated.
“As hard as it is to be great every single week, when the expectations are so high and the preparation is what it is, I think it’s kind of hard to suck back-to-back weeks, as well,” Rodgers said. “We just haven’t really done that over the last good bit and a lot of it is the way that we prepare, the way that we correct. I think self-scouting is such an important part of the process. I think we’ve done a good job of keeping the focus on what it needs to be and, at the same time, being as critical as we need to be with certain guys and taking feelings out of it and not letting people be victims or be sensitive about certain things – myself included.”
