Surging San Francisco too strong for Titans

The San Francisco 49ers look closely matched with the Tennessee Titans but they're two teams heading in opposite directions as they chase play-off places in Nashville in Thursday Night Football.

Slumping Titans in trouble

It’s just getting a bit tense now for the Tennessee Titans after a third loss in four sees their lead over the Indianapolis Colts down to just one game in the AFC South.

They’re still big 1.09 favourites to win the division given they hold the tiebreaker over the Colts, so at 9-5 currently just one more win will force Indy to win out to top them.

The Titans are 3.5-point home underdogs here though and could well be again against Miami in Week 17 given the Dolphins have won six in a row and are flying, but a final game against Houston should at least give them a victory.

Losing Derrick Henry is still hurting Mike Vrabel’s side but having AJ Brown also out has QB Ryan Tannehill playing more like the mess he was in Miami with a league-worst 14 interceptions against just 14 TD throws.

They’re a team on the slide facing one heading in the opposite direction.

San Francisco find their groove

Kyle Shanahan has his San Francisco 49ers getting into a groove now, with six wins in the last eight moving them on to 8-6, and while they’re still third in the NFC West they’re sixth in the NFC play-off standings.

San Fran are 5-2 on the road and have a game built for playing away, with an improving defense that really gets after the QB and exotic and dynamic run game that keeps the chains moving.

Jimmy Garoppolo has been finding form

They’ve lost running back Trey Sermon to IR and Elijah Mitchell is out, but Jeff Wilson stepped up last week with a 100-yard game against Atlanta as Shanahan’s system covered up for the injuries.

QB Jimmy Garoppolo is playing smart low-risk football but the joker in the pack is wide receiver Deebo Samuel, who has been electric when running the ball out of the backfield.

Samuel has five receiving TDs but having morphed into a running back he’s logged seven rush TDs – with six of those coming in his last five games. His combination of speed and brute force is tough to stop in the red zone.

Rolling Niners can run to victory

Overall these two sides score pretty much about the same and allow about the same number of points per game over the season, but they are two sides in very different form.

It’s four wins out of five for the Niners and three defeats in four for the Titans, with Tennessee struggling to score points with just 13 in each of their last three defeats.

Contrast that with the 49ers being able to put up 30-plus points pretty regularly - in five of their last eight – and that becomes a big issue for the hosts.

The points total is low – with 44.5pts priced at 1.91 for both over and under – and you can easily see the Titans fail to get more than 20 points again – priced at 1.89.

It’s turnovers that have been killing this Tennessee offense, with four, four and five being committed in those last three defeats. San Francisco will be ruthless in taking advantage of similar sloppy numbers as the Titans will be restricted to field goals.

Recommended bets:

San Francisco 49ers -3.5pts on the handicap at 1.94

Over 3.5 field goals at 2.3