The AFC has been in absolute flux this season, and that got turned up to eleven with the news Derrick Henry will miss the remainder of the season with a foot injury.
Brown and Julio Jones are on the roster — but so much of Tennessee’s offensive potential is based on teams being forced to respect Henry, so they can’t overload to stop the pass.
It might feel a little dire to say the season is over for Tennessee, but honestly Ryan Tannehill and the passing attack has not been as good this season as in the past two years.
This means there’s less pressure of worrying about falling into the same trap when the playoffs arrive, and that means something here too — even if the 2021 team is very different than a year ago.
There’s a lot of debate whether or not Buffalo could, or should have beaten Tennessee in their Week 6 matchup, but it still sparked a lot of debate.
The biggest benefit here is less about Tennessee being potentially out of the playoffs, and more about who will earn home field advantage.
The Bengals are coming off a crushing loss to the Jets, but still represent a ton of talent in their passing game.
Baltimore clearly run the ball at an elite level, but don’t have one bellwether back to make it all go.