The day has arrived, I just got back from a couple stores and Texans jerseys/shirts were all over the place and the town is bumping. its exciting. A lot has changed since my last post with that Texans D caught fire added tot the fact that no one can stop Hopkins the Texans managed to wrestle the division title away from the Colts and get to face the Kansas City Chiefs. Now lets get down to the matchups.
Kansas City
- On a 10 game winning streak after starting 1-5
- 6th in league in rushing yards per game
- 30th in passing
- 9th in scoring
- 4th in league with 47 sacks , big deal because the Texans lost their all pro left tackle Duane Brown last weekend. So watch out for Justin Houston and Tamba Hali to be delivering pressure all day
- 2nd in the league with 22 interceptions led by rookie all-pro Marcus Peters, Eric Berry and Derrick Johnson
- Watch out for Alex Smith’s scrambling , Kelce down the seam , and Maclin making ridiculous grabs
Houston
- On a 3 game winning streak
- Brian Hoyer returns from injury
- 15th in the league in rushing yards
- 18th in the pass, so a lot more balanced attack
- 5th in sacks, led by JJ Watt with 17 and Whitney Mercilus with 12
- The Texans also have the worst ranked special teams, so in a playoff game where mistakes are amplified this is worrisome
- Watch out for Hopkins vs. Peters even though Peters will not shadow him but more likely get safety help more often than not
- The Texans O-line since the loss of Brown
With the Texans D playing so inspired I can see this being a close game coming down to who can limit the turnovers. The Chiefs have the better guy in Smith and if he plays like he usually does with minimal turnovers . With a later start time than usual the home Texans crowd should be pretty rowdy. If its a low scoring game i can see the Texans winning, but anything over 25 points I just do no think they can hang. My heart is telling me 20-16 Texans.
Bettor’s pick – Chiefs ML at -157
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