Nite Owl Sports
3 Units Tennesse Titans -140
This game is pretty difficult to handicap, because both teams are 3-2 but have been erratic TY, with Tenn having played 3 very good games (incl both of their roadies, with upset wins at Dallas and NY) and two bad games, their home losses to Pitt and Denver, and Jags having played one great game (their home upset win over Indy), two decent games (home win over Denver and road win at Buffalo) and two real stinkers, a blowout loss at SD and a 3-28 loss at home to Philly. And Tenn has started off with two distinct patterns, one good and one bad – the good is their 2-0 road record, and the bad is their alternating pattern of wins and losses, with a loss due this game under that pattern. And these two have split the last four against each other in Jax, and split their two games LY, each victorious at home. Jags are 10-6 as home dogs L6Y under long time HC Jack Del Rio, but just 4-5 ATS L3+Y, incl 1-1 TY, and are just 8-10 ATS L3Y in division games, but were a decent 4-2 ATS LY in such games. Tenn is 7-5 ATS L3Y as a road fave but just 0-2 ATS LY, and 11-7 ATS L3Y in division games, but just 2-4 ATS LY in such games. And both teams are pretty similar on offense, with strong running games featuring a mobile QB and a strong primary running back (Chris Johnson for Tenn and Maurice Jones-Drew for Jags), and a decent but by no means overwhelming passing attack. And both teams have so so numbers on defense, both against the pass and the run. So where is the edge? Based on that analysis, there is none. So on the one hand, not being satisfied with that result, but on the other not wanting to force a play for our subscribers just because this is a MNF game that millions of fans will be watching, we dug deeper, and we found two significant advantages for Tenn.
The first difference between these two that really stands out is Tenn’s 22 defensive sacks TY, highest in the NFL, compared to Jags’ 11, which is below average. And both teams are about the same protecting the QB, with Jags QBs having been sacked 11 times compared to Tenn’s 12. And looking at Garrard’s best game (against Indy) and worst games TY (against Philly and SD), it’s pretty obvious that if given adequate time to find his receivers, Garrard can usually hit them, as he did against Indy (hitting 17-22 for 163 YP with 2 TDPs and no INTs), which was no coincidence since he was sacked only once by Indy’s weak pass rush (just 8 sacks TY thru their first five games). But against Philly, Jags scored a pathetic 3 points, had only184 yards total offense, and Garrard passed for just 105 yards, which became only 54 net YP when the -51 yards resulting from 6 sacks were offset. And in the Jags’ blowout loss in SD, where Garrard threw 4 picks before being replaced in the 2H, he was sacked only twice by the hard charging SD pass rush but suffered many more “knock downs” and “hurries.” So with Philly having only 12 sacks TY (half of them against Jags) and Tenn 22 sacks by the defense, it stands to reason that Titans should be able to mount a pretty good pass rush against Garrard and not only collect some sacks but also force him into some errant throws. And they know they’d better do that, because in LY’s game at Jax, Garrard was sacked only twice by a Titan defense not as good or as quick as TY’s, and he torched the Tenn secondary for 323 YP and 3 TDPs, with no INTs, as Jags won easily, 37-17.
The second major difference between these two, also favoring Titans, is that while Tenn has been quite good recently “under the lights,” with a 3-2 SU and 4-1 ATS record in the five nationally televised night games in which they have played L3Y, despite four of the five having been on the road, Jags have been a lousy 0-5 SU and ATS in such games, despite four of them having been at home, and 3 of them were division games.
So based upon the above analysis, we’ll go with the Titans, but with them having bounced back and forth all WE between -2.5 and -3, but now at -3 on the Top Ten picks menu, we’ll take them at -140 on the ML instead of laying the 3 points ATS (where all we get is a "push" if Titans win by a FG), as we believe the ML gives us much better value on Tenn, and then see where the line goes on Monday, with an ATS play on Tenn likely if the line drops back to 2.5 or less. But for now, it’s 3 units on Tenn at -140 on the ML.
