OddsFoundry · Film Room · NFL Week 3
Titans at Giants
The Giants lost Jaxson Dart for the season on Monday night, so Jameis Winston starts. A nor'easter is due at MetLife with heavy rain and 18 to 22 mph wind. The total fell from the mid 40s to 37.5 while the spread barely moved. The tape says Tennessee can run on this Giants front, and that is the best bet on the board.
Lens
Findings
Titans side on the left, Giants side on the right. Grades compare both units to league average, so a good offense against a good defense lands near zero. Hatched bars are low confidence: the tape and the baseline disagree on who owns that matchup. Ranks in brackets are out of 32.
X's and O's
Charted from nflverse play by play and FTN charting for both 2026 games. Where a number says league, it is the 2026 league average through Week 2.
Titans offense vs Giants defense
Brian Daboll, back at MetLife as Tennessee's OC · Dennard Wilson, Tennessee's old DC, now running the Giants' defense
- Run it at them. The Giants allowed 5.4 yards a carry in 2025 and the worst EPA per rush in the league (+0.13). Through two games it is 5.5 a carry, 2nd worst, and the Rams ran for 164 yards on 24 carries. Runs up the middle average 5.6 against them with a 53 percent success rate. Tennessee is 5th in EPA per rush and Pollard is at 4.7 a carry.
- The Giants can't finish a pass rush. One sack on 68 dropbacks, 1.5 percent, 31st. Abdul Carter has it. Brian Burns (76 percent of snaps) missed every practice with a low ankle sprain and is questionable. That matters for a QB who took 55 sacks last year, tied for the most, and 5 more on 63 dropbacks this year.
- Four rushers get carved. Wilson blitzed 25 percent of dropbacks. Without a blitz, opponents are at +0.51 EPA per dropback. With one, +0.18. Paulson Adebo is on IR and Deonte Banks (calf) and Tyler Nubin (calf) are questionable, so the coverage behind a four-man rush is thin.
- Third down is open. Opponents converted 13 of 19 third downs against the Giants, 68 percent, 31st. Tennessee is at 40 percent after finishing last in the league at 32 percent in 2025.
- Nothing downfield, and the wind will not help. Ward has thrown 20 or more air yards on 3 of 52 attempts and completed none. The Titans are 26th in pass rate over expected. Carnell Tate has 24 percent of the targets and 42 percent of the air yards, but -3.2 EPA on 11 targets.
Giants offense vs Titans defense
Matt Nagy's offense with Jameis Winston · Gus Bradley's defense under Robert Saleh
- Winston's 2026 tape is ugly. 11 of 27 for 111 yards and an interception in relief at the Rams, -0.57 EPA per dropback. Against the blitz he was -1.11 on 13 dropbacks. Tennessee blitzes 24 percent, 24th, so he may not see much of it. Last year he was +0.22 on 69 dropbacks, including 366 yards at Detroit.
- Isaiah Likely is the offense. 18 of 61 targets, 30 percent, 9 from each QB. 13 catches and +10.7 EPA, best on the team. Tennessee lets tight ends catch it, 9 of 12, but has given up 35 yards to the position, fewest in the league.
- The Titans leak to wideouts. 11.3 yards per WR target, 2nd worst (league 8.4), and +0.83 EPA per target. From Winston, though, Nabers caught 1 of 4 for 1 yard. Nabers (shoulder) practiced fully Thursday and Friday and has no designation.
- Skattebo is stuck in the middle. Giants runs up the middle average 2.1 yards (-0.33 EPA). Outside runs average 6.7. Tennessee held the Eagles to 2.6 a carry, and its weak spot is outside runs (54 percent success allowed).
- Protection should hold. Tennessee has 3 sacks on 68 dropbacks, 4.4 percent, 26th. Jeffery Simmons and Jacob Martin have 3 QB hits each. Andrew Thomas (groin) has no game designation.
The sim
150,000 games, drive by drive, at 10.3 drives a team. The dial is how much weight the two 2026 games get against a roster-adjusted 2025. The highlighted row is my number. Rain and wind enter as a flat hit to both offenses.
| Weight on 2026 film | Giants | Titans | Margin | Total | Titans +2.5 covers | Over 37.5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.00 | 21.6 | 18.0 | NYG +3.7 | 39.6 | 45.2% | 53.2% |
| 0.15 | 21.9 | 20.1 | NYG +1.8 | 41.9 | 50.8% | 59.9% |
| 0.25 | 22.0 | 21.3 | NYG +0.7 | 43.3 | 54.1% | 63.6% |
| 0.35 | 22.2 | 22.6 | TEN +0.4 | 44.8 | 57.2% | 67.5% |
| 0.50 | 22.5 | 24.6 | TEN +2.1 | 47.1 | 62.1% | 73.0% |
The market's 2.5 sits between the 0.00 and 0.15 rows, so it prices the Giants closer to last year than the tape does. At my weight the Titans cover 54.1 percent. The total still runs 39.6 to 47.1 across the rows, above 37.5. The sim takes a flat EPA hit for the storm. It does not see gusts near 40 mph on field goals and punts, a wet ball, or two offenses that have had 9.5 and 8.5 drives a game. At 9.6 drives it falls to 40.5. That is not enough to bet an over into a nor'easter.
The card
Worst run defense in the league by EPA last year, 2nd worst in yards per carry this year. Tennessee runs well and rain with 20 mph wind pushes Daboll toward the ground. His carries line is 13.5, so 48.5 asks for 3.6 a carry. Projection is 11.8 carries at 5.4. The source flags reduced confidence if Spears is active and moving well, or if Pollard's ankle limits him early.
30 percent of targets with either QB, and he cleared 3.5 in both games (8 and 5). Tennessee gives up catches to tight ends and not yards, so take the catches and skip the 40.5 yards. Short throws hold up best in wind. Built on 30 Giants attempts. Winston only completed 4 of 9 to him at the Rams, so this is the price of the volume.
Built on 27 attempts in a storm. He has 140 and 183 so far, no completions of 20+ air yards, and Tennessee would rather run. The Giants' pass defense is 31st in EPA per dropback, which is why this stays a lean.
The board has the Giants by 0.4 and the sim covers Tennessee 54.1 percent at my weight. The film lens has Tennessee by 6.7 even after the Winston penalty, but the 2025 lens still has the Giants by 4.3, so this stays a lean. Take +3 if it shows up.
With the weather hit and 10.3 drives the sim lands at 43.3, and at 40.5 on 9.6 drives. The total opened 44.5 to 45.5 and fell to 37.5 on the nor'easter and the Dart news. Both defenses are bottom 8 in EPA per play, but the sim cannot price 40 mph gusts on kicks. No bet.
What breaks it
Tennessee trails by 10
- The Titans lost 23 to 10 to the Jets. If Winston's offense gets a short field or two, Daboll has to throw, which cuts Pollard's carries and pushes Ward toward his number.
Spears plays a full share
- Spears (ankle, questionable) took 43 percent of snaps and ran 7 times for 41 yards against Philadelphia. A healthy Spears turns Pollard's day into a split. Check inactives at 11:30.
Nagy stops throwing
- If rain and Winston's accuracy push the Giants to 35 runs, Likely's targets shrink. At 22 attempts his usual share is still about 6.6 targets, so the catches line has some room.
How a row gets graded
Each row adds the offense's effect and the defense's effect relative to league average, divides by a fixed scale and caps at 5. The 2026 film lens uses opponent-adjusted two-game rates on a wider scale, because two-game numbers swing about twice as much as full-season ones. The 2025 baseline keeps 60 percent of Tennessee's offense (same QB, new OC Brian Daboll), 50 percent of its defense (new head coach Robert Saleh and new DC Gus Bradley), 40 percent of the Giants' offense (new QB, new OC Matt Nagy) and 60 percent of their defense (new DC Dennard Wilson). The Giants' defense takes a 0.015 EPA per dropback penalty in the baseline for Paulson Adebo on IR and Brian Burns missing the week. The Giants' offense takes a 0.06 EPA per dropback penalty in both lenses for Winston replacing Dart: Winston's last full run of starts, Cleveland 2024, was an 80.6 rating with -2.3 CPOE and 12 interceptions on 296 attempts, Dart's 2025 was a 91.7 rating, and Winston was -0.57 per dropback in relief at the Rams. His 69 good dropbacks in 2025 (+0.22) keep the penalty from going bigger. The sim alone takes a weather hit on both offenses, -0.08 EPA per dropback and -0.01 per rush, for heavy rain and 18 to 22 mph wind. It runs 10.3 drives a team instead of the 10.8 league average because Tennessee has had 9.5 drives a game and the Giants 8.5, and rain pushes both teams to run. Prop volume uses 27 Titans and 30 Giants pass attempts because of the weather. The props do not use the weather hit or the Winston penalty, and no bet uses the pipeline's Giants passing projection, which is built on Dart.
| Row | Metric | Weight | 2026 film | 2025 base | Confidence |
|---|
Sources: nflverse play by play and FTN charting (2026 Weeks 1 and 2, 2025 regular season), nflverse snap counts and rosters. Giants.com (Dart injury, final injury report, Week 3 tracker, staff announcement), TennesseeTitans.com (coaching staff), Giants on SI, Yahoo Sports (Titans final injury report), NFL.com (Dennard Wilson hire), CBS Sports and Covers (weather). Lines from VegasInsider, RotoWire, Sports Betting Dime, SportsGrid (FanDuel) and Elite Sports NY, checked Sunday morning.
Original report and source attribution · All Film Rooms · Official board
Entertainment and editorial research only. Source estimates are reproduced here; no new simulation was run for this publication.