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The Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans have played in each of the past five seasons, with the last three being in Nashville. Buffalo will finally host Tennessee this season and to fire up the matchup, it’s the Bills’ home opener and on Monday Night Football.
The Bills’ fanbase is amped up, to say the least. Buffalo is the betting favorites to win the Super Bowl and top the weekly power rankings virtually everywhere after demolishing last year’s champion, the Los Angeles Rams, in Week 1. Local schools are dismissing early on Monday to try and beat the traffic anticipated for the massive opening tailgate.
The Titans are on the opposite side of the excitement spectrum. They lost their season-opening game to the lowly New York Giants. Despite being the one seed in the 2021 playoffs, they lost a 19-16 game on a last-second interception-turned-field-goal. It was a perfect bookend as Ryan Tannehill’s first pass of the game was also intercepted. They are without two of their best players from a year ago after trading wide receiver A.J. Brown and an ACL tear for pass rusher Harold Landry.
In the past, the Bills have had trouble stopping the running of Derrick Henry, but a revamped defensive line featuring a trio of new defensive tackles was assembled at least in part to slow the running attacks of AFC South opponents. Linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and Matt Milano will hopefully stay clean enough for impact plays now that the wall in front of them is fortified.
Buffalo opened as a massive 9.5-point favorite and that has been bet up to 10 points over at DraftKings Sportsbook. It wouldn’t surprise us to see it move up to 10.5 points with the excitement surrounding both teams right now.