Trying to stay alive
Losing their previous game, Titans have pushed themselves out of the playoff hunt for the moment. Teams in the AFC South are pretty close and Tennessee is still alive, even though they are currently in the last place. Texans are in the lead with 2 wins ahead, but they are facing Houston twice at the end of the regular season schedule. But, they cannot afford many L's if they want to keep their playoff hopes alive.
They haven't performed very well last week. Derrick Henry had only 2 carries in the first half, which was one of the reasons why they couldn't find any rhythm offensively and why they trailed 0-17 at the halftime. Very bad news was the injury of Malcolm Butler who broke his wrist and ended up on Injured Reserve. Theoretically, they are running the type of defense that was causing some issues for the Chiefs lately. Physical man coverage on the line of scrimmage, disrupting the release of the receivers. But with Malcolm Butler out it will be difficult to execute it on a high level.
Run defense showing up?
Patrick Mahomes struggled with his ankle injury pretty much since the start of the season. He played through it until the game vs Broncos in Week 7, when the pain was finally too much to endure. Chiefs feared that he will be out for a longer period of time, but luckily for them, he only missed two games. In the meantime, Matt Moore took over and they've managed to split the two games in his absence, going 1-1 vs Packers and Vikings.
Last week's game vs Minnesota was pretty impressive. Moore doesn't have the arm of Mahomes, but he played within his limits and executed the gameplan really well. Defensively, they stepped up. After being considered as one of the worst run defenses in the league, they managed to slow down Dalvin Cook and keep him below 3.5 yards per carry, which was one of the keys. Chris Jones returning to the lineup did help and they also beefed up that D-line a little bit by adding Mike Pennel couple weeks ago.
Titans vs Chiefs best bet
With Butler's injury in mind, I really don't see how the Titans can stop Tyreek Hill. He had 6 catches for 140 yards with Matt Moore throwing him the ball vs the vaunted Vikings defense. With Butler out, he is going against either Adoree Jackson or LeShaun Sims. Jackson is a 4.35 guy, but whoever thinks he can run with Hill, gets burned. Badly. You need to disrupt him at the line of scrimmage and I don't think either of these two guys can do that.
I'd also keep an eye on Tajae Sharpe on the other side. I belive his role increased since Tannehil took over and he did drew some targets last week vs Panthers. With Corey Davis out he should draw the start on the outside and play meaningful number of snaps.
