No moral victory here. They played hard, did a lot of things great, but did some things wrong, and lost a close game they could have won. Just my quick, immediately after the game is over review.
- The offense had to get everyone involved. Run the ball and get all the WRs involved. It was Grant's best game of the season. He's had a bad season, but he does keep getting better. Jennings and Driver had big games, but I was hoping to see more from Nelson. Rodgers has been outstanding, but the turnovers are starting to pile up. Don't look just at the INTs, he's had a few fumbles too. His fumble and INT weren't killer, they cost the Packers at least 3 points, as much as 10 points, but in an OT, close game, they were critical.
- K Mason Crosby was perfect on FGs. CB Will Blackmon took some big hits and had a couple good returns. But they really need a big return into Titans territory, forced turnover, some big play to beat a great team on the road. Yea, it's asking a lot, but they needed it.
- Tennessee's offense average 4.3 yards per pass attempt, and 4.9 yards per rush. A lot of those yards came late in the game when the defense was tired, but they all still count. And a lot of them came on the game winning FG drive in OT (didn't even give the offense a chance). This complaint isn't just on the players, I wanted to see the coaches let the defense play up, commit to stop the run, and let them try to beat our corners in single coverage. I lost track how many INTs they dropped in the secondary. Two teammates went for the ball on two occassions and broke each other up from the INT. The defense was tough, physical, they did a lot right. But in the end, they couldn't stop the run, and couldn't come up with a single turnover.
- This was the 3rd loss this season when the other team (Tampa Bay, Atlanta, now Tennessee) just ran the ball right down the Packers throat late in the game to win. In the other loss, they allowed Dallas to run all over them early and the game wasn't close in the 4th quarter. One way to look at that is the team could be 7-1 if the run defense could have stepped up late in the game. The other way to look at it is the run defense is going to keep the Packers from winning the close games. Since I've seen no indication that the run defense is improving, any team that has an above average run offense that can keep the score close late in the game should beat the Packers.
- Mike McCarthy went for one 4th down early in the game (and called a pass play to rookie TE Jermichael Finley who to that point had never caught an NFL pass?) that led to a Tennessee FG, and defensive coordinator Bob Sanders should have done more to stuff the run. The coaching wasn't awful, but they didn't give the team an edge in a tough road game.