What we learned from Week 7 in the NFL

Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel could not ignore the obvious a week ago. After yet another virtuoso performance by the 247-pound freight train that is Derrick Henry bulldozing the Buffalo Bills on “Monday Night Football,” he admitted the team’s overreliance on its running back.

“We continue to jump on Derrick’s back,” Vrabel said, “and he’s willing and able to carry us.”

Yet we have also seen how far one player can take this Titans team: to the conference title game.

Looking to go further in the postseason, the Titans (5-2) acquired Pro Bowl receiver Julio Jones in June but began the regular season with the same old formula. Jones and A.J. Brown have not been healthy, the defense was getting gashed and quarterback Ryan Tannehill is not in anybody’s Top 10. Through six games, Henry was again on a pace to set the NFL’s season rushing record after falling 100 yards short in the 2020 season.

But Sunday, Tennessee dominated Kansas City, 27-3, in a breakthrough game that showed the Titans were taking a step toward being title contenders.

Henry is special, and any offense with any dreams of hoisting the Lombardi Trophy had better feature such a game wrecker.

But this win panned a magnifying glass over the rest of Tennessee’s roster, starting with the quarterback. Six of the other seven NFL teams to produce a 2,000-yard running back had terrible to below-average players under center. Eventually, it didn’t matter how good Barry Sanders, Eric Dickerson or any of those other backs were. Defenses loaded the box, and the rushers essentially rammed into brick walls.

The one exception among 2,000-yard backs, of course, was the Broncos’ Terrell Davis, who had a 38-year-old John Elway at quarterback.

Against Kansas City, Tannehill completed 21 of 27 passes for 270 yards with a 105.3 passer rating.

This is the best receiving corps Tannehill has had in Tennessee. Brown and Jones, struggling through hamstring injuries to begin the season, are starting to exploit one-on-one coverage outside. Brown finished with eight catches on nine targets for 133 yards.

Jones isn’t close to 100%, but he proved with a circus catch against Buffalo that he is not close to being finished. Tannehill completed passes to nine different players Sunday.

It was clear in its AFC championship game loss to Kansas City in the 2019 season that Tennessee, like every other team in the NFL, had no way of stopping Patrick Mahomes.

Since then, however, the Titans reset their secondary and added a Mahomes antidote in edge rusher Bud Dupree, whom the Titans signed to a five-year, $82.5 million deal this offseason. That’s the cost of finding a player who can single-handedly harass Mahomes and flip the momentum of a game.

Dupree tore his anterior cruciate ligament with the Steelers in December, and he admitted recently that he tried returning from surgery too soon. On Sunday, he looked again like a stopper worth a big investment.

Meantime, Mahomes has had to play at a ridiculously extreme pace to keep Kansas City alive, and it is proving to be unsustainable. We now know the Chiefs’ defense is bad — really bad — and the 27-point deficit Mahomes faced at halftime was the largest in his career.

He threw an interception in his sixth straight game and, on a final fourth-and-18 to end his day, he was brutally sandwiched between two Titans defenders. Mahomes cleared the concussion protocol, but, down 27-3, coach Andy Reid decided to keep him out of the game.

Trying to compensate for a sieve of a defense, Mahomes is now tied for the league lead in interceptions.

On the other sideline, Henry, or King Henry, as he is sometimes called, did not need to do much, thanks to help from the other Titans. Henry even threw a touchdown pass out of the wildcat formation, and ran for only 89 yards on 29 tries (a 3.0 yards-per-carry average).

For one game, Henry was merely human, and the Titans were still dangerous.

The Bears are wandering aimlessly.

Chicago is the third-largest city in the country, which presumably is why the Bears are constantly put in prime-time television slots, as CBS did by plugging the Tampa Bay Buccaneers-Bears game in at 4 p.m. Eastern. That way, the rest of America got to see the defending champions embarrass a franchise that continues to display zero direction.

This should come as no surprise to Bears ownership. Their team has beaten bad teams and been run out of the building by good teams for what feels like a generation.

Rookie Justin Fields played poorly, again, but the team’s problems are probably too deep-rooted for any quarterback to succeed.

Tampa Bay had four touchdown passes — including the 600th of Tom Brady’s career — in the first half. Chicago has had three all season.

Around the NFL

Raiders 33, Eagles 22

Right when it looked like Derek Carr had plateaued, he completed 31 of 34 passes for 323 yards with two touchdowns. Seven different players caught at least three passes, despite Las Vegas playing without running back Josh Jacobs and tight end Darren Waller.

Cardinals 31, Texans 5

The Cardinals technically did not need another receiving threat but upgraded anyway last week, adding tight end Zach Ertz, who caught three passes for 66 yards with a touchdown in his first game with Arizona.

Rams 28, Lions 19

A fake punt provided Detroit some hope. On fourth-and-8 in the third quarter, Lions coach Dan Campbell rolled the dice, the Lions converted and dreams of a colossal upset seemed real. That drive ended without a score, though, and the discrepancy in talent eventually caught up with Detroit. Matthew Stafford’s 5-yard touchdown pass to Cooper Kupp at the start of the fourth quarter proved to be the difference. Bengals 41, Ravens 17

It’s official. The Bengals are for real. Against the same defense that stifled Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert one week ago, Joe Burrow threw for 416 yards and three touchdowns. Nearly half of that production (201 yards) went to his former college teammate, Ja’Marr Chase. This connection alone should scare everyone else in the AFC.

Packers 24, Washington 10

Who says Aaron Rodgers doesn’t have weapons? Wide receiver Allen Lazard and tight end Robert Tonyan combined for 123 yards and two touchdowns, and Green Bay cruised with ease at home.

Falcons 30, Dolphins 28

Miami suffered another heartbreaker, losing on a walk-off field goal. Tua Tagovailoa’s two interceptions did nothing to silence Deshaun Watson trade rumors.

Patriots 54, Jets 13

Dates with the NFL’s worst teams always seem to come at the right time for New England. After another devastating loss, the Patriots faced the Jets and rolled to 31 first downs and 551 total yards. New England did not turn the ball over and punted once.

Giants 25, Panthers 3

After tearing through the soft part of their schedule early, the Panthers have come crashing back to earth. This is about as pathetic as it gets on offense in today’s NFL. Sam Darnold averaged 4.4 yards per pass attempt, Chuba Hubbard averaged 2.3 yards per carry and Carolina converted 2 of 15 on third downs. Against, uh, the Giants.