Bills at Titans: Your guide to Monday's game

A matchup of teams that has each enjoyed playing under the Monday Night lights: Buffalo is 5-1 against the spread on the road on Mondays. Tennessee is 7-2 straight up and against the spread Mondays, including 4-0 straight up and against the spread at home.

The Buffalo Bills’ blowout win over the Chiefs at Kansas City last week, however, might prove to be its Waterloo, as they are just 4-10 straight up and 2-12 against the spread in games after taking down the Chiefs, including 0-8 against the spread when facing teams with a .570 or better winning percentage.

Ed Oliver seemed genuinely perplexed by the question.

How has the Buffalo Bills’ run defense made such a big jump from last year in the league rankings?

When the Buffalo Bills run: Last week, quarterback Josh Allen took his turn to lead the rushing attack. Allen had 59 yards on 11 carries, but he’s been held to just 3.56 yards per carry in three career games against Tennessee. The Titans rank 26th in the NFL, allowing 4.51 yards per carry. EDGE: Bills.

When the Bills pass: Even though he’s 2-1 in his career against them, Allen hasn’t put up big numbers against the Titans, throwing for 565 yards, four touchdowns and four interceptions. Last year, most of his 263 passing yards came in garbage time of a blowout loss. Allen, however, has a better collection of weapons than he's had for past games, with tight end Dawson Knox and wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders combining for nine touchdowns this season. Titans starting cornerback Kristian Fulton missed two practices during the week because of a hamstring injury, so his status for the game is in doubt. EDGE: Bills.

Here are The News' predictions for how the Buffalo Bills will fare Monday against the Tennessee Titans in Nashville. The Bills are favored by six points.

 Jay Skurski

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Like a lot of music clubs here, you can walk up four flights of stairs. The ground floor is one band with one vibe, the second and the third, each their own. And the top floor is the rooftop patio.

At one of them on Saturday, there was a DJ spinning hip-hop under a bright late afternoon sun and 150 or so people dancing and drinking, overlooking Broadway, the Music City’s Mecca. Nearly all the patrons at the club were in their 20s. Dudes with backward ball caps, young ladies with iPhones wedged into the back pocket of high-waisted jeans. And at the front of the DJ stage, under the watchful eye of two bouncers, were six grandmothers from Buffalo.

Ask about Buffalo Bills kicker Tyler Bass, and some of the answers start to sound quite similar. 

“I’ve been around some swaggy kickers, now. But he’s definitely top two, and not two,” wide receiver Stefon Diggs said ahead of Week 4. “But he plays like a skill position player. He’s got a little swagger about him.”

The Bills had a desirable injury report Saturday: No players had any injury designations ahead of the Monday night meeting with the Tennessee Titans.

Linebacker Matt Milano was a full participant in practice Saturday, after he was limited Thursday and Friday with a hamstring injury. Milano was injured during the Week 4 game against the Texans, and did not play last week against Kansas City.

Bills center Mitch Morse has his routines for each game. Some of those are individual, and keep him mellow during the pregame lead up. Other times, he and his fellow linemen are encouraging each other. 

Morse played his first four years in Kansas City before joining the Bills in 2019. He’s faced his old team a few times now. Last weekend, the trip was a little different, though, and not just the outcome.

File Micah Hyde’s interception return for a touchdown Sunday night under the heading: Good things eventually come to good people.

Hyde caught a break. The pass from Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes bounced directly off the hands of Tyreek Hill. Hyde was in the perfect position to make the play.

It’s a sound NFL draft philosophy to keep the talent pipeline flowing with edge rushers.

The Buffalo Bills are proving the point this season – they hope – with the promising play of three recent edge draftees – Greg Rousseau, A.J. Epenesa and Carlos Basham. Obviously, the jury still is out on all three. But so far, so good, especially with Rousseau.

Safety Micah Hyde thought that nickel cornerback Taron Johnson was playing looser Sunday, and he had a guess as to why. 

"He got that bag!” Hyde said after the game. “He's playing free."

Buffalo Bills fans have long known about Josh Allen's "unusual" pregame playlist. And with the team's success garnering it more national attention each week, Allen's playlist has been thrust in the spotlight as well.

A pair of Elvis Presley nuggets, twin gems from the Frank Sinatra canon, an evergreen Sammy Davis Jr. interpretation, and one each from Billy Joel and Paul Anka currently comprise Allen’s musical pregame ritual. When the playlist hit the ether via the Sunday Night Football on NBC Twitter account prior to Sunday’s Bills-Kansas City Chiefs game, the "roast factor" among social media respondents was, unsurprisingly, quite high. 

Buffalo Bills offensive line coach Bobby Johnson gushed last week about Spencer Brown, saying the rookie right tackle “jumped off the tape” in the preseason and in limited mop-up duty through the first three games of the regular season, leading to his first career start in Week 4.

Brown has started the team’s last two games, victories against Houston and Kansas City, and the 6-foot-8, 311-pound lineman is rewarding the coaching staff for its confidence.

Buffalo Bills rookie defensive end Greg Rousseau has been named the AFC Defensive Player of the Week following his performance in Buffalo’s 38-20 win over Kansas City.

Rousseau intercepted Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the third quarter, one of four takeaways for the Bills on Sunday. The defensive end also had a sack, five tackles, a quarterback hit and a tackle for loss. On the interception, his first, Rousseau first tipped the pass from Mahomes, who was looking for Mecole Hardman.