Tennessee Titans at Baltimore Ravens - 8/11/22 NFL Picks and Prediction

The Tennessee Titans will be out to build on another successful season under Mike Vrabel in 2022, finishing last season at 12-5 and winning back-to-back division titles since the early 1980s when the Titans were the Houston Oilers. The Titans would earn the top seed in the playoffs, but the stay in the postseason was short-lived as the Titans lost to the eventual AFC champion Bengals in the divisional round. Ryan Tannehill’s back after throwing for 3,734 yards, 21 TDs and 14 interceptions last year and Derrick Henry is also back after rushing for 937 yards and 10 TDs last season. The Titans will try to revamp the receiving corps, after losing Julio Hones to free agency and shockingly dealing A.J. Brown on draft day after leading Tennessee in receiving last year, but the Titans think they have their new guy in Alabama first-rounder Treylon Burks. Kevin Byard and Harold Landry are both back after finishing 1-2 in tackles last year and will try to once again anchor a rush defense for the Titans that was 2nd in the NFL last season.

The Baltimore Ravens will look to put a catastrophic 2021 season in the rear view after going 8-9 last year, missing the playoffs for the first time since 2017 and their first last place finish in the AFC North since 2007. The was mainly because of a multitude of injuries to guys like J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards in the preseason and Lamar Jackson in the final few weeks of the regular season among many others. The Ravens will hope for a clean bill of health from Lamar Jackson as well as J.K. Dobbins as one of the most dynamic backfields in the NFL on paper, but it's yet to be seen who will emerge from the Ravens’ receiving corps after Marquise Brown was traded to Arizona in the offseason. The Ravens’ strength defensively will once again lie in the rushing defense that finished in first ahead of the aforementioned Titans’ unit last season. With names like Marlon Humphrey, Kyle Fuller, Justin Houston and Calais Campbell leading the charge, a similar output could and should be expected here.

I get why the Titans are worth a look as preseason football can be volatile and laying points ca be less than ideal. However, the Ravens here to me are the deeper team and I just like their second and third stringers more than I do Tennessee’s, who to me are a very top heavy team. They have solid pieces like Tannehill and Henry, but after that there’s more of a drop off than what I’m seeing from Baltimore’s bench players. Give me the Ravens to win this one by 6-7 points at the very least.