Written by Michael Silver at NFL.com
On a gorgeous autumn afternoon in Music City, Mike McCarthy sat in a small corridor at the Loews Vanderbilt hotel and showed his hand. A day before his struggling team would take on theTennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium, the Green Bay Packers’ 11th-year coach was locked in on Twenty One — but McCarthy felt pretty far from lucky.
“We have 21 personnel groups in our game plan,” McCarthy said, shaking his head for emphasis. “Twenty-one! I’ve gone into games with a lot of personnel combinations, but I don’t ever think I’ve donethat before. But hey, that’s where we are right now. Itâs on all of us to find a way to get it done.”
Exactly 24 hours later, McCarthy trudged off the Nissan Stadium field bemoaning a different ’21’ — the number of points the Titans scored in the first quarter, to none for his team. Translation for Tennessee: Blackjack. In a game that highlighted the Packers’ frustrations in all three phases, the Titans (5-5) rolled to a 47-25 triumph that pushed Green Bay (4-5) below .500 and deeper into a hole that suddenly seems full of quicksand.
“I mean, we are what our record is — and it’s not good,” veteran tackle Bryan Bulaga said of Sunday’s beatdown in front of 69,116 fans, which left the Pack a game behind the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions in the NFC North. “We’re 4-5, and it’s unacceptable for us. There’s still a lot of football left to be played. It’s up to us to find a way to dig ourselves out of this.”
Not since a 51-29 shellacking by the New Orleans Saints on Nov. 24, 2008, have the Packers allowed so many points in a regular season game (they matched that total in the 2009 playoffs, suffering a 51-45 overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals), and it continued a recent trend: Sunday’s setback was the Pack’s fourth in five games, and they have given up at least 30 points in each of those defeats.
After a second consecutive stinker against an AFC South foe, each of which was marred by a slow start, the Packers are feeling the heat in Titletown, where fans have been spoiled by seven consecutive playoff appearances. Suddenly, the widely held perception that thePackers belong in the NFL’s upper echelon is as under siege as quarterback Aaron Rodgers was on Sunday, when the Titans sacked him five times and left observers questioning some basic tenets.
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