Early Kansas City Chiefs-Tennessee Titans Week 9 Preview & Predictions

In Week 9, the Kansas City Chiefs will meet a familiar foe in the Derrick Henry-led Tennessee Titans.

This game will be played at Arrowhead on NBC’s Sunday Night Football program (8:20 p.m. EST) on Nov. 6. And like their previous regular season matchups, this game promises to carry significant implications on the AFC playoff picture.

Kansas launched sports betting earlier this year, and the Chiefs are among the main teams that fans in The Wheat State can bet on through the DraftKings Kansas sportsbook. The app is running a promo where if you place and win a $5 bet, you’ll receive $200.

DraftKings Kansas gives the Chiefs the third-best odds of winning Super Bowl 57 at +800, behind only the Buffalo Bills (+275) and Philadelphia Eagles (+550). Only Josh Allen (+130) and Jalen Hurts (+450) have higher odds of winning the MVP award than Mahomes (+500).

Titans Have Given Andy Reid’s Chiefs Struggles

The Titans and their AFC South rivals, the Indianapolis Colts, are the only teams that have won multiple regular season games against Patrick Mahomes without suffering a loss.

Mike Vrabel’s Titans defeated Kansas City at Nissan Stadium in the 2019 and 2021 regular seasons. The Colts upset the Chiefs at Arrowhead in 2019 and handed them a heartbreaking loss in Week 3 at Lucas Oil Stadium earlier this year. But of course, Mahomes Chiefs eliminated the Colts in the 2018 Divisional Round and the Titans in the 2019 AFC Championship Game.

But the Chiefs’ struggles against the Titans go back several years, well before the Mahomes era began.

A two-win Tennessee team upset the Chiefs on the road in Week 1 of the 2014 season, and it wound up costing Kansas City a playoff spot. They finished 9-7 on the year, lost out on a tiebreaker to the Baltimore Ravens for the final wild card spot.

In 2016, a Tennessee team that wound up missing the playoffs (they finished 9-7) upset the eventual No. 2 seeded Chiefs at Arrowhead. When they met there again in the 2017 AFC Wild Card Round, the Titans erased a 21-3 deficit and wound up winning 22-21.

The Chiefs are almost never an underdog at home with Mahomes. They’ll be favored in the Week 9 tilt against Tennessee, but nobody should be surprised if Tannehill and Henry lead the visitors to an upset. This is one of the few AFC squads that has given Reid’s team constant fits.

Kansas City’s defense has struggled against high-powered offenses early in the season, especially that of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (31 points allowed in Week 4), the Las Vegas Raiders (29 allowed in Week 5) and the Bills (24).

The Titans will surely rely on Henry to carry the offense in this one. He has 332 rushing yards and four touchdowns in three career regular season games against the Chiefs.

Moving the ball against a leaky Kansas City defense shouldn’t be hard. The main question for Tennessee is if they’ll be able to stop the Chiefs’ plethora of play-making weapons, namely Travis Kelce, JuJu Smith–Schuster and Clyde Edwards-Helaire.

Score Prediction: Chiefs 31, Titans 23

A lot can change between now and the highly-anticipated Week 9 meeting at Arrowhead. How will both teams look heading into this matchup, and will their injured key players be back for this one?

Based on how both teams have played so far, however, it’s simply tough to go against the Chiefs. They should have defeated the Colts in Week 3, and they were awfully close to defeating the Bills in Week 6.

Given Kansas City’s high standards, 4-2 isn’t a record to be “wowed” by through six games, but they could easily be 4-2. As for the Titans, they started 0-2 but managed to reel off three straight victories thanks to a rather soft schedule.

Tannehill hasn’t been consistent whatsoever, and Robert Woods was the team’s leading receiver through five weeks with just 17 receptions for 204 yards.

As long as the Chiefs’ defense doesn’t let Henry completely take over this game (say, 150-plus rushing yards and multiple touchdowns), they should be able to win. Tennessee doesn’t have the playmakers in the secondary to go head-to-head with all of Mahomes’ weapons.

The Titans will keep it close, as they always do against the Chiefs. But when all is said and done, Kansas City will pick up a crucial mid-season home win.