There are two Monday Night Football matches in the NFL 2022 season this week and the first of those to kick off sees two AFC rivals going at it when the Buffalo Bills play host to the Tennessee Titans.
The Bills were the pre-season favourites to win the Super Bowl and showed exactly why that is the case with a win over the champions in their campaign opener. The Titans have the potential to be dangerous though so this one is nicely set up.
Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills have a lot going for them heading into this match. Not only do they go into it off the back of a fantastic and dominant performance over the reigning champions but that was the Thursday game last week which means they have had maximum time to dust themselves down and prepare to go again in what is their home opener. They have seen the Miami Dolphins pick up a second win in their division and will be looking to answer in kind.
The Bills did some good work to their roster over the off season with the eye catching addition of Von Miller potentially turning them from challengers into champions. It is rare for a team to offer their best stuff in the opening match of a season so if there is natural improvement to come from Josh Allen and his teammates then Buffalo are going to be very tough to stop. There wasn’t an obvious weakness in their win in Los Angeles last week.
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Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans were edged out by the New York Giants last week which wasn’t the way they wanted to begin their season. They now go on the road to the Buffalo Bills and could easily be looking at a 0-2 record at the end of it which would put pressure on them in their next match after this one unless they can pull off what would be something of a shock win. If they are going to do that they need to be a lot better on both sides of the ball.
Tennessee actually led that match 13-0 at half time last week which will have made losing it even more annoying and disappointing but ultimately they couldn’t get their hands on Saquon Barkley and paid the price. Ryan Tannehill played a decent enough game with 266 yards and two TDs but you sense if Tennessee have a chance here they’ll need to keep the Buffalo offense off the field so long drives through the run game of Derrick Henry will be the aim.
Betting
This is one of those Week 2 matches where the spread looks inflated based on last week’s results and while I suspect the Tennessee Titans are getting a couple of points more than they should be getting, the fact that Buffalo Bills have effectively had an early bye week to ready themselves for this one puts me off siding with the visitors. The other thing that puts me off is how easily the Buffalo pass rush put pressure on Matt Stafford last week.
That means I’ll head to the player markets for a bet on this match where the rushing attempts of Derrick Henry looks a low line at 20.5. He was handed the ball just 21 times in the loss to the New York Giants last week, a move head coach Mike Vrabel criticised offensive coordinator Todd Downing for so I would expect more carries for Henry from here on in anyway but I especially expect them here because the last thing Vrabel will want to do is expose his defence to this powerful Buffalo offense all night. The other reason why I think they’ll hide behind the run game is to alleviate some of the pressure which will come for Ryan Tannehill. The second running back Dontrell Hilliard is out for this match so any rushes should be done by Henry and I expect him to go well into the 20s for carries throughout this match.
Tips
Back D.Henry – Over 20.5 rushing attempts for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Betway
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