Henry, Titans hand Packers another stinging NFL loss
GREEN BAY: Tennessee running back Derrick Henry ran for a touchdown and threw for one too, as the Titans handed Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers another frustrating NFL defeat on Thursday, 27-17.
Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill threw for 333 yards and two TDs as injury-depleted Tennessee notched their seventh win in eight games.
For the Packers it was a sixth defeat in seven games as they were unable to build on their come-from-behind overtime victory over the Cowboys last Sunday.
“I don’t even know what to say,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said. “It was nothing like a few days ago and that’s why you’re only as good as your last game. Give credit to the Titans, they came ready to play.”
Rodgers connected on 24 of 39 passes for 227 yards with two touchdown passes to rookie Christian Watson, but said he was off-target too many times.
While the Packers limited Henry to 87 yards, he proved plenty dangerous.
He scored on a four-yard sprint in the second quarter to give the Titans a 14-6 lead and in the third he faked a run but delivered a three-yard jump pass to Austin Hooper for a touchdown that put Tennessee up 20-9.
“We hit it a couple of times in walkthrough every week,” Hooper said of the tricky play. “When it got called in the huddle I was like ‘All right, it’s time!’”
“Luckily, it worked just like it does in walk-through,” added Hooper, who also caught a 16-yard scoring pass from Tannehill to cap the scoring in the fourth quarter.
Tannehill also connected with Dontrell Hilliard with a 14-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter, when Tennessee went up 7-0 on the way to the wireto-wire victory.
“We played the way we wanted to play,” Tannehill said. “We talked about it all week — we wanted to be the more physical team and I thought we did that.”