5 reasons Oakland Raiders at Tennessee Titans is best Week 1 matchup

2. An emerging AFC rivalry

Though both of these teams have their roots in the old AFL, it’s hard to maintain a healthy rivalry when your teams don’t meet annually and play on opposite ends of the country. The best way to account for that is simple: winning.

Expect the Raiders and the Titans to do a ton of that in the next several years. Both teams are entering the best part of their competitive life cycles. They have the right front office structure in place, solid head coaching and of course, great quarterbacking.

For those reasons, we can expect the Raiders and the Titans to be meeting almost annually due to both clubs finishing at the top or the near the top of their respective divisions. There’s a good chance that Oakland and Tennessee will meet in the AFC playoffs quite often in the next few years.

Though Oakland has defeated the Titans in the last two years, Tennessee is catching up and might take a win from the Raiders now and then. Not to say that the Raiders and Titans will have a rivalry like the Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots did during the Peyton Manning/Tom Brady years, but Oakland versus Tennessee could be the one the AFC leans on in the coming seasons to draw ratings.