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If it’s true that defense wins championships, the Houston Texans must be feeling pretty good.<\/p>\n
The division round combines interesting forces against the balance of forces. The Texans defense is very good. Allowed the fewest yards in the NFL this season. That team will face the New England Patriots offense led by Drake Maye, and Matthew Stafford who are the two clear frontrunners for NFL MVP. Even if Stafford wins the MVP, it doesn’t take away from how good Maye has been in his sophomore season.<\/p>\n
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The Patriots had a big breakout season, including their first playoff win since Tom Brady led the way to a Super Bowl victory over the Los Angeles Rams. They went 14-3 after winning just four games over the past two seasons. For those who cheered the Patriots’ slump after a long reign, their dip didn’t last long.<\/p>\n
The Texans have never been as successful as those great Patriots teams. Houston has never been to the AFC championship game in its 24 seasons of existence. The Texans are 0-6 in the divisional round and each loss was by at least seven points. They hope this defense takes them further than they have ever been in franchise history.<\/p>\n
The Texans and Patriots haven’t played this season and have faced off just once since 2021. That was a 41-21 Texans win in the 2024 season.<\/p>\n
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The biggest name on the injury report for either team is Texans receiver Nico Collins, who suffered a concussion Monday night and has not practiced so far this week. It’s unlikely he’ll play, which hurts Houston’s offense a lot. Collins had 1,117 receiving yards in the regular season and no other Texans receiver had more than 525. Another big question was Patriots linebacker Christian Gonzalez, who is also coming off a concussion but returned to practice Wednesday and is expected to play.<\/p>\n
This is a matchup of two of the best coaches in the NFL. DeMeco Ryans has completely transformed the Texans. He is 32-19 in his three seasons in Houston, and his impact is evident on the Texans’ top defense. Mike Vrabel could win NFL Coach of the Year for the second time in his career. His first came while leading the Titans, and he did an impressive job in his first season in New England. These are the best facilitators and defensive minds among the NFL’s head coaching ranks.<\/p>\n
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Nico Collins is likely to miss Sunday’s game, and the Texans aren’t a top offense even with Collins on the roster. Houston will need someone to step up. Last week it was rookie running back Woody Marks, who ran for 112 yards in a win over the Steelers. Marks had a solid rookie season but that was his first game of more than 74 rushing yards. The Patriots are strong against the run and the pass, but without Collins it seems like the Texans will need to develop a running game to get their offense going. Grades will be the centerpiece of that effort.<\/p>\n
There aren’t many weak spots for the Texans defense. But tight ends have been productive against Houston lately. Over the past seven weeks Houston has allowed a 123.8 passer rating against tight ends, according to NBC Sports Boston. That’s the ninth-highest mark in the NFL at the time. Hunter Henry was already a big part of New England’s passing game. He was second on the Patriots with 768 yards in the regular season and led the team with seven touchdowns. He scored the Patriots only touchdown in the wild card round. He will be involved every Sunday.<\/p>\n
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The Patriots opened as 2.5-point home favorites at most sportsbooks, but the line has moved to -3 across the board, with a few showings -3.5. Houston WR Nico Collins has not practiced due to a concussion suffered against the Steelers on Monday night, and could miss the game. Drake Maye had some mistakes in Sunday’s win over the Chargers. Was it a sign of things to come or a blip in what has been a potential MVP campaign? CJ Stroud also didn’t inspire confidence against the Steelers (five turnovers), but he has more playoff experience than Maye. Houston’s defense is good enough to win this game, but I think the Texans come up short without Collins. – Ben Fawkes<\/em><\/p>\n Check out other options at Ben <\/em>Yahoo Sports betting hub<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Texans defense is solid. Houston will keep the game low-scoring (and so will its offense, unfortunately for the road team), and will try to pull it out late by forcing a few key turnovers. This is where Drake Maye should win. Maye is already one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks, and he should be able to produce big plays against defenses that don’t give up much. The Texans would have a much better chance to win if Nico Collins was available, but that’s not happening. Without Collins, the Texans’ offense is in trouble.<\/p>\n Patriots 16, Texas 9<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If it’s true that defense wins championships, the Houston Texans must be feeling pretty good. The division round combines interesting forces against the balance of forces. The Texans defense is very good. Allowed the fewest yards in the NFL this season. That team will face the New England Patriots offense led by Drake Maye, and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2039,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions\/2039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insightresearcher.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Prediction<\/h2>\n