Green Bay Shut Down Tennessee in Their Best Game of the Season

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Photo Credit: Evan Siegle

The Titans are an old-school team built for old-school conditions. They feature the league’s best running back in Derrick Henry, and an outstanding pair of outside receivers in AJ Brown and Corey Davis to keep you from stacking the box against him. In their most shocking defensive performance of the season, the Packers were having none of it, walloping the Titans 40-14 on a snowy night in Lambeau Field.

The Packer defense has improved dramatically over the last 4 games, since a group of veterans led by Za’Darius Smith, including Preston Smith and Kenny Clark, approached defensive coordinator Mike Pettine about simplifying the pass rush. While this stretch has included the struggling Eagles and Lions, both the Panthers and Titans possess top ten offenses, and the defense is holding opposing quarterbacks to a 54.7% completion percentage and a 73 quarterback rating, versus 66.4% completion percentage and a 98.4 rating prior to Week 13. 

Up front, the Smith Brothers have benefitted the most from this simplification, with Za’Darius terrorizing quarterbacks even more than usual, while Preston has benefited from playing fewer snaps in pass coverage, allowing him to contribute more against the run. He was essential to stopping Derrick Henry (23 rushed for 98 yards) on Sunday. Rashan Gary’s continued week-to-week improvement and stellar play has given the team one of the league’s best pass rushers of late.

The biggest beneficiary of all, though, has been Darnell Savage, who has emerged as one of the league’s premier safeties. Tackle numbers are never the best indicator of an individual defensive performance, but with Savage they tell the story of a player who is firing to the ball like never before. Prior to week 13, he never had more than 5 solo tackles in a game. Since then, he’s eclipsed that total twice, with 8 against Detroit and 6 against Carolina. More importantly, he’s been attacking the catchpoint with 4 interceptions in his last 5 games, not counting a near-pick-six of Ryan Tannehill last night that would have given him two for the game. Savage is playing the deep safety position far less and has been freed to attack the ball. It has paid huge dividends for the entire defense.

In past seasons, a back like Derrick Henry would have set records against the Packer defense. Instead, Mike Pettine found the proper scheme and personnel to shut him down, while harassing Ryan Tannehill into one of his worst performances of the season. Tannehill, who entered the game as a top-5 quarterback, completed under 50% of his passes for a paltry 121 yards. According to Aaron Schatz of FootballOutsiders.com, this was their best defensive performance of the season, and one of the best of the Pettine era. With the playoffs just around the corner, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Running Heavy

The defense doesn’t matter if the offense isn’t putting up points, and that has occasionally been an issue for the Packers in poor weather conditions. On Sunday, points were no problem at all thanks to Davante Adams, and rookie AJ Dillon, seeing his first extended action. Dillon is, ironically, quite similar to Derrick Henry. Henry is taller, but they both run heavy, weighing over 240 pounds, and both blew away the field at the NFL Scouting Combine with their speed and explosiveness. While the Packers bottled up Henry, The Titans had no such luck with Dillon, who converted 7 first downs over the course of the game, including an incredible 30-yard touchdown run on 4th and 1 in the 3rd quarter that basically ended the game. 

Aaron Jones was effective as well (10 carries, 94 yards) including a 59-yard run where the officials missed him stepping out of bounds, but Dillon consistently punished defenders, and picked up tough yards inside.

Davante Adams was his usual brilliant self, catching 11 of 12 targets for 142 yards and 3 touchdowns, which was all the passing that the team really needed. Equanimeous St. Brown also hauled in his first career touchdown, but we should take a moment to highlight the dirty work performed by Allen Lazard and Marquez Valdes-Scantling. Lazard has been one of the league’s best blocking receivers since he started seeing the field last season, and as his target share has gone down this year, he has lost none of his ferocity in plowing through smaller defensive backs. Lazard was again outstanding on Sunday in the running game, but the bigger surprise may be Valdes-Scantling, who has taken a major step forward in his technique as a receiver, including his blocking. 

MVS has been the equal of Lazard in the run game recently, and together they are almost certainly the best blocking wide receivers in the league. While MVS doesn’t have the physical presence of Lazard, he’s been able to use his speed, and some impressive hand technique to take defenders by surprise. Many players would sulk upon not being targeted for games at a time, but Valdes-Scantling and Lazard seem content to focus on their run game contributions and are still happy to show up and catch passes when called upon to do so. They are insanely difficult matchups for any cornerback, given that they are as likely to knock him over as they are to run right by him.