NFL Football Betting: Tennessee Titans at San Diego Chargers

AFC action out West on Sunday afternoon as the Tennessee Titans take on the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers are 3-5 and in last place in the brutal AFC West. At the moment they’re actually the only team in the conference with a losing record–Oakland, Denver and Kansas City enter Sunday’s action with a combined record of 17-6. They’ll face an improving Tennessee Titans team that is 4-4 SU on the year winning 3 of their last 4 games. They’re coming off an impressive 36-22 home win over Jacksonville on October 27.

Once you’ve spent enough time betting NFL football you’ll come to realize the value of situations. More specifically, you’ll begin to understand how some teams are great ‘play on’ teams in certain situations and ‘play against’ teams in others. The San Diego Chargers are a perfect example of this. They’ve a great team as an underdog and one that we look to play on whenever they’re getting points. As a favorite, however, not so much. This could be particularly true against a Tennessee team that has one of the ugliest pointspread profiles in the NFL. Any of the Titans L3 situational breakdowns are ugly–10-28 ATS overall, 9-23 ATS as an underdog and 5-23 ATS in conference for starters.

Those are nasty numbers to be sure but it’s very important to know when to pay attention to situational records and when not to. In this case, the ‘eye test’ suggests that this Titans team may have ‘turned the corner’. Maybe not to the point where they can compete for the playoffs but enough that they’re better than the team that went 3-14 ATS against opponents with losing records during the past three years.

So let’s return to San Diego’s ATS record as a favorite. They’re on a 4-9 ATS run laying points, a 2-6 ATS run as a home chalk in this price range (-3.5 to -7 points), a 2-8 ATS run as a -3.5 to -7 point favorite overall, and a 7-12 ATS record in all home games. They’ve dominated Tennessee in head to head play with a 9-2 SU/8-2-1 ATS record overall along with a 6-0 SU/5-1 ATS record at home. Once again, however, context is essential–none of these games came during the past three years.

BET TENNESSEE TITANS +4.5 OVER SAN DIEGO CHARGERS