{"id":20308,"date":"2011-12-17T19:00:10","date_gmt":"2011-12-18T00:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20308"},"modified":"2011-12-16T20:09:57","modified_gmt":"2011-12-17T01:09:57","slug":"nfl-playoff-picture-tennessee-titans-look-to-stay-alive-versus-the-indianapolis-colts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nfl-playoff-picture-tennessee-titans-look-to-stay-alive-versus-the-indianapolis-colts-20308\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Playoff Picture: Tennessee Titans Look to Stay Alive Versus the Indianapolis Colts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennessee Titans at Indianapolis Colts
\nSunday, 12\/18\/11, 1:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 CBS
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Tennessee -7
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Tennessee -6.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 40.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 41.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Tennessee Titans will try to keep their playoff hopes alive Sunday<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tennessee begins a three-game stretch against teams from the AFC South this week in hopes of staying in the playoff hunt, coming off a 22-17 loss to the New Orleans Saints as 3.5-point home underdogs.\u00a0 Titans first-year head coach Mike Munchak certainly knows that his locker room needs to win its final three games to potentially qualify for the postseason, but will likely need starting quarterback Matt Hasselbeck to get over his minor calf injury.\u00a0 Tennessee is 3-7 ATS as favorites of 3.5 to 9.5 points the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Titans snapped a five-game losing streak in this series with a 27-10 win over the Indianapolis Colts as nine-point home favorites on Oct. 30, but were out-gained by an 88-yard margin in the contest.\u00a0 Tennessee needs star running back Chris Johnson to bounce back this week after gaining just 23 yards on 11 carries last week versus the Saints, especially considering he ran for a combined 343 yards and two touchdowns in the previous two weeks.\u00a0 He needs 125 rushing yards for his fourth consecutive 1,000-yard rushing season.<\/p>\n

Indianapolis is virtually a lock to receive the No. 1 pick in next year\u2019s NFL draft, but still has three weeks to try and avoid an 0-16 season.\u00a0 \u201cObviously, every time you go out, you want to win,\u201d commented Colts center Jeff Saturday.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s something to build on for the future.\u201d\u00a0 The Colts will be led offensively by quarterback Dan Orlovsky for the third straight week, looking to improve upon the team\u2019s numbers of being 31st in the league in gaining just 283.4 yards per game.\u00a0 Indianapolis is 1-4 ATS as an underdog of 3.5 to 9 points this year, while the \u2018under\u2019 is 3-2 in that situation.<\/p>\n

The Colts will be looking to avoid being swept by the Titans for the first time since the 2002 season, with the contest likely coming down to the defense trying to stop the Titans ground game and Johnson.\u00a0 Indianapolis has limited one of the best running backs in football to just 68 rushing yards per game in six career meetings.\u00a0 Indianapolis will definitely be tested on the other side of the ball in facing a defense that ranks sixth in the league in allowing just 19 points per game.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Colts due to their 11-5 ATS mark in Week 15, while the Titans are 1-4 ATS as a road favorites.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NFL handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tennessee Titans at Indianapolis Colts Sunday, 12\/18\/11, 1:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 CBS Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Tennessee -7 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Tennessee -6.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 40.5 Current Total:\u00a0 41.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Tennessee begins a three-game stretch against teams from the AFC South this week in hopes of staying in the playoff hunt, coming off […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":17248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[1065,530,126,6158,503,5195,301],"class_list":["post-20308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-chris-johnson","tag-dan-orlovsky","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-jeff-saturday","tag-matt-hasselbeck","tag-mike-munchak","tag-tennessee-titans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20308"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20312,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20308\/revisions\/20312"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}