The Tennessee Titans (11-7) look for a third straight upset on the road when they travel to Arrowhead Stadium to take on the Kansas City Chiefs (13-4) in Sunday’s AFC Championship. The Titans pulled off a surprising 28-12 victory over the Baltimore Ravens last week, which was the team’s fifth straight road win, a span in which they have outscored their opponents by 16 points per game.
Tennessee has been playing extremely well with QB Ryan Tannehill under center, going 9-3 in his 12 starts. He hasn’t been asked to do much with his arm in the playoffs, as the team has leaned very heavily on RB Derrick Henry, who topped 180 rushing yards in both games.
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These teams met in Nashville back in Week 10, and there were plenty of offensive fireworks in Tennessee’s 35-32 win. In that game, Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes exploded for 446 yards and three touchdowns, while Henry ran all over the Kansas City defense, racking up 188 yards and two scores.
It will be tough to steal a win in Kansas City, but this game stands a strong chance of going down to the wire. The Titans are getting 7.5 points (-121) on the spread and +260 odds on the moneyline. Both represent solid value.
Establishing the run
Henry led the NFL with 1,540 rushing yards in the regular season, and he has been virtually unstoppable lately. He is averaging 196 rushing yards over his past three games and has topped 100 yards in seven of his last eight, including 149 yards or more in six of those contests.
The Kansas City defense has been vulnerable against the run all season. They have surrendered the fourth-most yards per attempt on the ground, and seventh-most yards per game. The Titans offensive game plan looks pretty obvious, and Henry should have another huge day.
Which defense will step up?
The Titans aren’t built to play from behind, so they can’t afford to get down a couple scores. As long as the game is close, they should be able to continue feeding the ball to Henry, and he should run wild on the porous Chief run defense.
The Tennessee defense will need to do a better job of containing Mahomes, who went off for 446 yards and three scores in the Week 10 matchup.
This should be a high-scoring affair, as the Titans should move the ball at will on the ground, but they will have a hard time slowing down the Kansas City air attack. The Chiefs, winners of six straight, deserve to be slight favorites, but Tennessee has beat them once already, and has a good chance to hand them their fourth home loss of the season. Back the Titans in this one.
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