MNF Odds – Big Game for the City of Jacksonville

When you explore the MNF odds for this week’s game, you find that this is not only an important AFC South game between teams who were tied for the lead going into the weekend, it’s also a big game for the city of Jacksonville.

Their Jags play host to the Tennessee Titans and kick it off at 8:30 PM ET at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium (natural turf). In the MNF odds for this game, the Jags are getting a field goal, with the total posted at 45.5 points.

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Tennessee Titans (3-2 SU & ATS) at Jacksonville Jaguars (3-2 SU & ATS)
Live at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium
Monday, October 18 — 8:30 PM ET
TV: ESPN

MNF Odds:

Tennessee -3
Jacksonville +3
Total 45.5

Here are some of the trends as they impact our pick on the MNF odds on this game:

• Tennessee has won eleven of its last 15 games SU
• Tennessee has played six of its last nine games OVER the total
• Tennessee has played four of its last five road games UNDER the total
• Tennessee has won five of its last six road games SU

• Jacksonville has played four of its last six games OVER the total
• Jacksonville has lost six of its last nine games SU
• Jacksonville has covered five of its last 17 games
• Jacksonville has played five of its last seven home games UNDER the total

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Key stats for Tennessee — Opponents have had to gain 18.1 points for every point they have scored against the Titans. Tennessee has had a strong pass rush, getting to enemy quarterbacks 22 times.

Jason Babin leads the way with 5.5 sacks, while Dave Ball has 4.5. Quarterback Vince Young has thrown just two interceptions in 96 attempts. He has a QB rating of 61.3, which is lower than counterpart David Garrard. Chris Johnson ran for 131 yards against the Dallas Cowboys and has 485 yards on the season.

Key stats for the Jacksonville — Maurice Jones-Drew leads the way for the Jaguars’ offense, with 406 rushing yards David Garrard has completed 66% of his passes for 789 yards and nine touchdowns.

He has been sacked 12 times. Josh Scobee, who kicked the winning field goal against the Colts a couple of weeks ago, is perfect on all ten of his field goal attempts and all eleven of his extra points. The opposition has averaged 8.8 yards per pass attempt and 13.2 yards per completion against Jacksonville’s secondary.

Here are the head-to-head trends as they relate to our MNF odds selection:

• Tennessee has won and covered five of the last seven meetings
• Four of the last six meetings have gone UNDER the total

The first game of the season was very big for the people of Jacksonville, who are desperate to hold onto their NFL franchise (although that hasn’t been reflected in season ticket sales).

They’ve got a big "Teal Monday" thing planned, officially declared by Mayor John Peyton himself, were he has asked local businesses (except bars, of course) to close early and watch the game, either at the stadium or at home (the blackout has been lifted).

This is the kind of thing that would normally be seen as rather benign, and something that wouldn’t have an effect vis-a-vis the MNF odds, but the players seem to have a great interest in this; they bought into the emotion of the opener against Denver, which had a similar theme, and that resulted in a big effort.

Jones-Drew, with a wrist injury, is expected to play. and that will be a boon to the Jaguars, because he got loose for touchdowns of 79 and 80 yards the last time these teams met.

That’s obviously important because he will have to move the ball for them in order to have the best chance against the MNF odds.

Fundamentally speaking, these teams are pretty similar; they are going to look to the run first, have QB’s who can move around but have not always been consistent when they throw, and have wide receivers who are not all that threatening.

Garrard, however, has made some strides lately, completing 33 of 42 in the last two games. With a home win over the Colts and a road triumph at Buffalo, who is to say the Jags couldn’t be a wild card contender?

Not that we find a heck of a lot of fault with the Titans, and Johnson does afford them the most dangerous offensive weapon on the field, but we think emotion will carry the Jags a long way in this one, so taking the field goal is in order in our play against the MNF odds.

JAY’S PLAY: JACKSONVILLE +3 ***
(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)

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