Bad Calls Part of Bad Night at Green Bay

The Tennessee Titans got crushed.

En route to a 40-14 victory, the Green Bay Packers amassed 448 yards of offense, picked up 27 first downs and dominated time of possession, controlling the football for 36:27.

Quarterback Aaron Rodgers had another MVP-caliber stat line, completing 21 of his 25 passes for 293 yards and four touchdowns, three of them to star wide receiver Davante Adams, who had 11 catches for 142 yards by night’s end. Rodgers did throw one interception, but it occurred when the game was already out of reach. A pair of running backs, A.J. Dillon and Aaron Jones, combined for 218 rushing yards, and Dillon scored twice.

The Titans’ offense turned in a rather lackluster performance too.

Players and coaches never want to blame officials for losing. Mistakes are, of course, human nature. Missed calls happen. While the Titans certainly wouldn’t point any fingers toward the officials (Sunday) night, they found themselves on the wrong end of two obvious missed calls.

One of them they overcame. The second started a second-half meltdown.

“I don’t think anybody should be confident in anything that we did (Sunday) night,” coach Mike Vrabel said, adding, “poor coaching.”

The first of the two botched calls occurred with the Titans trailing 19-0 late in the second quarter.

From the Titans’ 17 yard line on fourth-and-8, Titans defensive tackle Jack Crawford blocked Mason Crosby’s 35-yard field goal and second-year safety Amani Hooker sprinted the ball down the right sideline before the Packers finally brought him down at their 20-yard line.

A special teams play such as that one, for a moment, looked to be a large momentum shift in what was a one-sided affair at the time.

But the referees saw otherwise. They flagged special teams ace Joshua Kalu for being offside. Replay showed that the third-year cornerback was nowhere close to the neutral zone.

Vrabel didn’t offer much on the topic.

“I didn’t have a very good angle at it,” he said. “We will have to see.”

The penalty pushed the Packers up five yards and coach Matt LeFleur decided to keep Rodgers and the offense out on the field for a fourth-and-3 from the Titans’ 12 yard line instead of kicking a 30-yard field goal. That decision was one of the few that didn’t go as planned for Green Bay on Sunday night.

Wyatt Ray, who the Titans signed to the active roster from the practice squad earlier in the week, sacked Rodgers for a loss of 17 yards to force a turnover on downs. It was the Titans’ lone sack of the night and just their 15th of the season -- the fewest in the league.

The Titans then produced one of their better offensive drives of the ballgame, one that spanned 10 plays and 71 yards. Tannehill completed a handful of difficult passes to get the Titans down the field, including three to A.J. Brown. It ended with Tannehill finding tight end Jonnu Smith for a 12-yard sliding touchdown, his eighth touchdown of the season, the most by any Tennessee tight end during the Titans era (1999-present).

The score was significant for Tennessee because it appeared for at least a moment that it negated a blown call by the officials. The Titans also started the second half on offense.

“We were able to get points there before half, which was big. It kind of kept us in it” Tannehill said. “And then coming out, we got points to start the second half. But that was about it. Those two drives were all we had going the whole day.”

To start the second half, the Titans needed just five plays to drive 66 yards for their next touchdown. All of the sudden, they found themselves in a brand new ballgame. They trailed by just five points, 19-14, with a little bit of momentum back on their sides.

It lasted minutes, and a missed call played a role in derailing it.

On the Packers’ first play of the second half, Jones ran outside the numbers and raced down the sideline 59 yards before cornerback Adoree’ Jackson shoved him out.

He tip-toed the sideline in the process and, according to replay evidence, he stepped out of bounds well before the end of the play. The Titans didn’t have enough time to decide if the play was worth a challenge, according to Vrabel.

“By the time the ball was snapped, that was the first view that we got,” he said. “That was unfortunate. I wish we would have been able to tackle him and set the edge when we had him in the backfield.”

Two plays later, Rodgers connected with Adams for a third touchdown and extended the lead to 26-14. The Titans did not score again and struggled to move the football offensively. The Packers found the end zone twice more to demoralize the Titans in a frozen, wintery environment.

At the end of the day, nothing was good enough and not much went right for the Titans on national television. All of it sets up a crucial Week 17.

“We weren’t able to play physical enough and stop the run,” Vrabel said. “We kicked the ball out of bounds to start the game. Turnovers. ...None of it was good enough and we’ll have to go back and coach and practice and be ready to go win a game.”