Tilted fiber Bragg gratings (TFBGs) have shown to be a suitable tool for exciting surface plasmon waves in a comparable manner as in typical attenuated total reflection Kretschmann configurations. In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of the characteristics of prism and grating configurations for generating surface plasmon resonance (SPR) for 800 and 1550 nm wavelengths. Results indicate that longer wavelength SPR may present advantages in sensing. Recent label-free biochemical sensing results using NIR TFBGs with and without SPR coatings demonstrate limits of detection ranging from the nM to the pM range without the need for thermal stabilization.