Titans vs. Colts how to watch: TV channel, live stream info, pick, what to know for Thursday Night Football

AFC South supremacy is on the line as the Colts and Titans battle on Thursday Night Football

After a few weeks of being subjected to the NFC East and the New York Jets and COVID-ravaged teams and a surprisingly terrible NFC South battle, we might actually get a good primetime game on Thursday night. The top two teams in the AFC South -- the Indianapolis Colts and Tennessee Titans -- are set to square off at Nissan Stadium, and it's a fascinating bout between two teams with similar resumes who have arrived at this point of the season in much different ways. 

The Colts enter at 5-3, sporting one of the league's best defenses -- a unit that ranks first in yards allowed per game, third in points allowed per game, and third in Football Outsiders' defensive DVOA. The 6-2 Titans, meanwhile, have mostly gotten it done on the other side of the ball. Tennessee ranks 10th in yards, seventh in scoring, and third in offensive DVOA. The Colts offense and the Titans defense, meanwhile, each rank in the bottom-third of the league. 

So, this is a matchup of strength vs. strength and weakness vs. weakness. That should be fun. Let's break it down.

How to watch

Date: Thursday, Nov. 12 | Time: 8:20 p.m. ET
Location: Nissan Stadium (Nashville, Tennessee)
TV: Fox, NFL Network, Amazon Prime | Stream: fuboTV (try for free)
Follow: CBS Sports App

R.J. White and Will Brinson broke down the spread, total, player props and DFS angles to know for the Thursday night matchup on the Pick Six Podcast; listen below and be sure to subscribe for daily NFL goodness.    

When the Colts have the ball

It's hard to know what to make of the season Philip Rivers is having. He simply did not look very good for most of the first five weeks of the season, really only getting into a rhythm against the despicable Jets. He was barely asked to do anything in a few of those games because of how well the Colts' defense played, though, and struggling against the Browns' pass rush and secondary isn't really a sign of disaster. 

When he lit up the Bengals and Lions for a combined 633 passing yards, six touchdowns, and one interception it looked like he was maybe hitting his stride, but the Ravens stopped him right in his tracks last week: 25 of 43 for 227 yards, no touchdowns, and one pick. It was ugly, and that brutal passing line might actually under-well the degree to which it was. 

The good news for Rivers is that the Titans defense has a lot more in common with that of the Bengals and Lions than with the Ravens. Tennessee rarely gets pressure on opposing passers (31.9 percent of opponent dropbacks, per Pro Football Focus and Tru Media, compared with a league average of 35.4 percent) and struggles to cover passes to almost every position: The Titans rank 24th in Football Outsiders' DVOA on passes to No. 1 receivers, 16th against No. 2 wideouts, 29th against tight ends, and 11th against running backs. They've been especially susceptible to deep passes (26th in DVOA), so maybe Rivers might even throw the ball more than five or six yards downfield on occasion in this matchup. 

Working against Rivers, though, is a sheer lack of weaponry on the outside. T.Y. Hilton is likely to miss his second consecutive game, which means Rivers will be working with Zach Pascal, Marcus Johnson, and Michael Pittman as his top three wideouts. Not exactly a murderer's row. Tight ends Jack Doyle, Trey Burton, and Mo Alie-Cox all work well as pass-catchers, but none of them stretch the field like Hilton and only Alie-Cox is a big after-catch threat. Rivers' best weapon right now might by Nyheim Hines, and while Hines is a good pass-catching back, that's not a good situation for an offense. 

The Indianapolis run game has not been as good this year as it should be, considering the strength of the team's offensive line. Rookie back Jonathan Taylor has been largely ineffective amidst apparent injuries and sporadic playing time, and he's recently taken a back seat to Jordan Wilkins, who has looked more decisive and explosive than the rookie. Wilkins' longest run of the season is only 22 yards, though, meaning the Colts don't have much of a big play threat in either area of the offense. They need to matriculate the ball downfield slowly, and against all but the worst defenses, that's a difficult task in the modern NFL. 

When the Titans have the ball

Just a few weeks ago, the Titans were rolling. They were 5-0 heading into a game against the also-undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers, and they'd just come off a destruction of the Buffalo Bills followed by a hard-fought, overtime win against the division rival Houston Texans. Rather than regressing as many predicting, the Titans offense actually arguably looked better than it did a year ago, despite Derrick Henry not really getting untracked until that game against Houston. Here's what we wrote about them at the time: 

Tennessee is right back where it was last season. From Week 7 through Week 17 of the 2019 campaign, the Titans ranked second in Football Outsiders' offensive DVOA. This season, the Titans rank third in offensive DVOA through the first six weeks. They've got the No. 11-ranked rushing unit and the second most efficient passing game in the league. They're second in the league in both scoring average (32.8 points per game) and yards per game (422). 

What makes those figures even more impressive is the fact that prior to last Sunday's monster game against the Texans, Henry was again averaging just 3.7 yards per carry early in the season. It was Tannehill and the pass offense doing almost all of the heavy lifting. If Tannehill has regressed this season, it is only very slightly -- and you can make a pretty good argument that he's actually been better than he was a year ago. 

But again, that was a few weeks ago. Over the past three games, Tannehill has taken a step backward as the Titans suffered two tough losses to the Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals, then squeaked by the Chicago Bears in a game where the offense didn't do much of anything at all.

WEEK	COMP	ATT	COMP%	YDS	TD	TD%	INT	INT%	Y/A	RTG
1-6	121	173	69.9	1370	13	7.5	2	1.2	7.9	113.6
7-9	46	81	56.8	611	6	7.4	1	1.2	7.5	100.4

Tannehill's touchdown and interception rates have stayed steady, but his completion percentage and yards per attempt averages have dipped. Some of that can be attributed to playing tougher defenses in Pittsburgh and Chicago, but he didn't exactly light the world on fire against Cincinnati, either, going 18 of 30 for 233 yards, two touchdowns, one interception. 

On tape, Tannehill doesn't actually look all that different. It's just, the windows aren't quite as wide as before. And he doesn't have quite as much time as before, thanks to left tackle Taylor Lewan's season-ending injury. After being sacked only five times through five weeks, Tannehill has been sacked six times in the last three. He's seen his his sack rate spike from 2.8 percent to 6.9 percent, and his pressure rate jump from 27.6 percent to 34.1 percent, per Pro Football Focus and Tru Media. 

That's a worrisome trend, but maybe not so much in this particular matchup. Despite being excellent defensively, the Colts have actually not gotten all that much pressure on opposing quarterbacks. Some of that is scheme -- the Colts rarely blitz (18.4 percent of opponent dropbacks) and prefer to sit in zone coverage and force teams into underneath throws. But some of it is also personnel, as they don't have dynamic edge threats beyond Justin Houston, who doesn't have a sack since Week 4. (DeForest Buckner is a monster up the middle, though, and needs to be dealt with, likely with extra attention.)

The Indianapolis run defense is excellent, though, and could cause a lot of problems for Henry, who has not been hitting big plays at the same rate this season as he did a year ago. He tends to get better as we get deeper into the season and it becomes more difficult for freezing cold defenders to tackle a man his size, but his explosive run rate is down from 11.6 percent last year to just 8.8 percent this year. The Colts are stopping 19 percent of opponent runs at or behind the line of scrimmage, per Football Outsiders, and rank among the best in second-level (second) and open-field (first) yards allowed per carry as well. 

The Colts should be able to limit the extent of Henry's damage, but if the Titans can hold up in pass protection, Tannehill has the type of style that could result in some intermediate-range completions against this Indianapolis defense. It's usually set up to limit big plays, but with A.J. Brown and Jonnu Smith's ability to run after the catch, it's possible Tennessee could pop one, flip the field, and take control of the game. 

Prediction: Titans 23, Colts 20