AFC SOUTH 2020 PREVIEW

BY ADAM GREENE

A team from the AFC South nearly spoiled the NFL’s party last season as the 9-7 Tennessee Titans came into the playoffs and ruined everyone’s betting cards for the first two weeks before finally falling to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship game.

It was a return to form for the AFC South, a division that has regularly put a finalist into the title game over the last five years. It was just as much a return to form as that AFC South team lost, as it in 2014 (the Indianapolis Colts) and 2017 (the Jacksonville Jaguars).

Will one of these four squads make it two years in a row? You have to get to the postseason first and I feel like the South is set to fill the ranks of playoff contenders.

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (12-4, Division Champion)

The Colts were so close to being good last year, with six of their nine losses coming by a single score. The upgrade of adding Philip Rivers to this team can not be understated. He’s definitely worth a touchdown per game. Their schedule inside the division is tough, but outside it they’ll have little trouble against their third place opponents like the New York Jets, Cleveland Browns and Las Vegas Raiders.

The NFC North is a tough draw, but they get the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings at home. This is easily a team that could open the season 6-1 and put real distance between themselves and the rest of the AFC South before the leaves start to turn.

HOUSTON TEXANS (10-6, Wild Card)

While the Colts bask in a third place 2020 schedule, the Texans are eating it hard with a first place slate that got them all of one playoff win last year and an eventual double-digit loss (after an epic, historic comeback no less) to the eventual Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs.

They open the season against those same Chiefs in Kansas City, then host the Baltimore Ravens, then travel to the Pittsburgh Steelers followed by a home match up against the Minnesota Vikings. In fact, five of their first seven opponents were playoff teams in 2019.

Bill O’Brien has done his best to rob this team of some of its best players over the last two seasons with mismanagement and pennies on the dollar trades that boggle the mind. It might lessen the effect of his ineptitude if he was a decent gameday coach, but he’s not. He’s one of the worst in football. As long as Deshaun Watson and J.J. Watt can suit up, this team can beat anyone, but those victories aren’t coming from the sidelines. They’re coming from Watt and Watson taking over games.

TENNESSEE TITANS (10-6, Wild Card)

The Titans have the exact opposite problem. Tennessee’s epic playoff run came last year not because of the talent on the field, but from the prowess and strategic acumen of its head coach, Mike Vrabel. They were outmatched, talent wise, in both their playoff victories and by the fourth quarter neither game was in doubt. That all came from the sidelines.

They’re better this year, but roster-wise Tennessee is still the third best team in the division. Yet, all this team has to do is make it to the playoffs and another magical run could be just around the corner.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS (7-9)

There will most certainly be improvement in Jacksonville this season and if the team can let Doug Marrone keep the job and build the franchise from the ground up with the draft capital they’ve acquired, it will pay off down the road. Like a couple of years down the road, but it can happen.

What can’t happen is for owner Shahid Khan to get impatient and pull the plug on a team in the middle of a rebuild. Improvement will not show up overnight. They made sure of that when they didn’t go after Cam Newton in the offseason.

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