The Titans are given no chance in Buffalo

The Tennessee Titans aren't always the underdog in games. It just feels that way.

Not just to me or you. To them, too. "I guess it's just something that we're used to,” safety Kevin Byard said. “I always feel like, since I've been here, we've always been the underdog.”

In reality, the Titans have been favored more often than not since coach Mike Vrabel took over in 2018. But anecdotally, as verbalized by Byard, his team has long been fueled by a stubborn belief that not enough NFL respect gets put on the Titans' name, given their accomplishments.

"You just kind of go into games with a different mentality when you know that you're not really picked to win,” Byard said. “It's not necessarily David and Goliath. But the little man versus the big guy, we — I think — as a team understand that role."

That, I'd say, is as good an explanation as any for how curiously well the Titans have continued to perform when doubted by oddsmakers — much as they surely will be again Monday night in Buffalo against the touted Bills (6:15 p.m., ESPN).

Evidence of that isn't just anecdotal. It's real.

The Titans, by my count, are 17-12 (58.6%) in regular-season games under Vrabel as the betting underdog (and 2412 as a favorite with one game listed as a pick 'em).

In 2021, they actually fared better as an underdog (6-2) than as a favorite (6-3). They've not fared worse than .500 as an underdog in any of Vrabel's four full seasons.

If you're wondering, that's about as rare as you might suspect. Since 2018, only three other teams — the New Orleans Saints, Pittsburgh Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs — are listed by the site Statmuse as winning more than 50% of their games as underdogs. Bringing us back to Monday night. As I look at this matchup, I'll admit that I'm squinting pretty hard to see a way in which the Titans – fresh off a come-from-ahead defeat to the lowly New York Giants – will be able to hang with a Bills team that just wrecked the Super Bowl champion LA Rams and are probably the NFL'S best at the moment.

Oh, and the Bills will be rested and surely more than motivated to tackle the Titans after losing primetime games in Nashville the past two seasons.

I'm not picking the Titans to win Monday. How could you? That's utter foolishness.

But that's kind of the point.

This game is another classic setup for a Titans stunner.

Monday's spread against the Bills has been hovering around 10 points in the home team's favor. That was as of Friday. It might climb higher before kickoff.

Only twice before in the Vrabel era have the Titans been so heavy an underdog, and they won both times against 10-point favorites.

They beat the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2018 and the Baltimore Ravens in the playoffs in 2019.

Conversely, the Titans were 10-point favorites when they lost last season at home to the Houston Texans, another result that neatly fit the long-held narrative of a franchise chronically prone to both losing and winning games in situations you'd least expect.

We've seen both so often before from the Titans, you could see the unexpected happening Monday night.

Though, in fairness, that might be the only reason you could see it happening.