Tennessee Titans vs Kansas City Chiefs: Sunday Night Football Week 9 preview, picks, top prop bets, more

The AFC South-leading Tennessee Titans travel to Kansas City to take on the AFC West-leading Chiefs on Sunday Night Football.

Tennessee Titans (5-2) at Kansas City Chiefs (5-2)

Game Details:

Location: GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, MO
Time: Sunday, November 6th at 8:20 p.m. ET
Channel: NBC

Betting Stats:

MONEYLINE: KC (-650), TEN (+460)
SPREAD: KC -12.5
OVER/UNDER: 45.5

Preview:

The Titans come into this game riding a hot streak, winning five straight games against a pretty easy schedule. Tennessee’s opponents during that winning streak have had a combined record of 10-18-2 none of the opposing offenses ranked higher than 20th in DVOA. Obviously, facing the Chiefs is not that.

Kansas City has the league’s top-scoring offense, averaging 31.9 points per game, and has scored more touchdowns than any other team despite only playing seven games. They are throwing for 296 yards and rushing for 107.3 yards per game.

Patrick Mahomes has also done it by spreading the ball around. Travis Kelce (47 receptions, 553 yards, seven TDs) remains the focal point, but all of Juju Smith-Schuster (34 receptions, 494 yards, two touchdowns) Marquez Valdes-Scantling (22 receptions, 369 yards) and Mecole Hardman (19 receptions, 218 yards, three touchdowns) remain actively involved in the offense.

When you factor in the addition of Kadarius Toney and three running backs who are all involved in the passing game, it makes this Chiefs offense difficult to gameplan for.

However, the Titans do have a strong defense, giving up just 19.7 points per game. Their defensive front, led by Denico Autry (3.5 sacks) and Jeffery Simmons (5.5 sacks) is able to get pressure on the quarterback without blitzing, which allows the linebackers to help a below-average secondary.

Yet, the Titans are unlikely to win this game on defense. They are going to need to keep the Chiefs’ offense off of the field as much as possible, which is obviously easier said than done. Especially since this Titans offense has not been good enough to sustain many long drives.

Tennessee is averaging 18.9 points per game, and they are throwing for 147.6 yards and running for 138 yards per game. They failed to score more than 24 points in any game this season, ranking 24th in scoring, 26th in total touchdowns, 28th in yards per play, and 30th in Pro Football Focus’ offensive power rankings.

Their offense lives and dies with The King, Derrick Henry. During the Titans’ five-game winning streak, Henry is averaging 129.6 yards per game on 4.9 yards per carry and has rushed in six touchdowns. He leads the league in rushing yards per game (107.9) and sits third in overall rushing yards with 755.

But he’ll face a stiff test this weekend since Kansas City allows the second-fewest rushing touchdowns and third-fewest rushing yards per game ., and seventh-fewest yards per carry (4.1).

Before their bye, the Chiefs held Christian McCaffrey to 38 rushing yards on eight carries, but Jeff Wilson Jr. did have 54 yards on seven carries, so San Francisco did have some success on the ground that Tennessee will look to duplicate.

And they will need it because rookie Malik Willis will be starting under center with Ryan Tannehill still battling an ankle injury. The rookie completed 60 percent of his passes during his first start last week but only threw for 55 yards and one interception, so the team likely has little faith that he can pass them past the Chiefs on the road.

Picks:

Player Props:

Juju Smith-Schuster Over 54.5 receiving yards

There is a lot of hype around Kadarius Toney, but I’m not quite so sure he’s going to make an immediate impact in such a deep wide receiver corps. With the Titans likely game-planning to stop Kelce, I think we could see another solid game from Smith-Schuster who has been getting 20% of the targets in Kansas City and had back-to-back 100-yard games before the bye. We mentioned above that the Titans’ secondary is bad, allowing a 67.5% completion rate, so I think Mahomes can light them up on Sunday night.

SPORTSBOOK: BET AVAILABLE AT (-115) ON DRAFTKINGS

Patrick Mahomes over 2.5 passing touchdowns

This is a little bit of a risky bet, but, again, we’re picking on this Tennessee secondary. Mahomes has thrown for three or more touchdowns in four of his seven games this season, and I don’t think this Tennessee offense will be able to keep him off the field.

SPORTSBOOK: BET AVAILABLE AT (+125) ON DRAFTKINGS

Derrick Henry under 90.5 rushing yards

I know it feels weird to bet against Henry, but we just covered that this Tennessee offense has basically nothing aside from him. I think Kansas City is going to stack the box and dare Malik Willis to beat them. If this game gets out of hand – or at least becomes a two-score game – Tennessee will not be able to lean on Henry as much and it will be harder for him to hit this total.