The rest of Week 12’s matchups will be published on Friday.
Colts at Texans, 8:20 p.m. Eastern time, Fox & NFL Network
Line: Texans -3.5 | Total: 45.5
With first place in the A.F.C. South on the line, this game is predicted by The Upshot to be the week’s most important matchup in terms of playoff implications. The Texans (6-4) are predicted to have an 82 percent chance of making the playoffs should they win, and a 49 percent chance if they lose. The Colts (6-4) would have a 79 percent chance with a win and a 36 percent chance with a loss.
Indianapolis has been somewhat limited in the passing game in recent weeks because of injuries, but it used a dominant running game to demolish Jacksonville on Sunday. Marlon Mack and Jonathan Williams each carried the ball for more than 100 yards, but Mack left in the third quarter with a fracture in his right hand and will be out indefinitely. A committee of Williams, Nyheim Hines and Jordan Wilkins will have its hands full trying to run on Houston’s defense, which has been fairly stout this season outside of last week’s thrashing by Baltimore.
Would it work to put the ball in Jacoby Brissett’s hands and expect the young quarterback to lead the Colts to victory? It did in Week 7, when he threw for 326 yards in a 30-23 victory over Houston. But that performance is looking like an outlier, with injuries to both Brissett and some of his key receivers leading to Indianapolis passing for fewer than 200 yards as a team in five of its previous six games. Tight end Eric Ebron looks unlikely to play, and wide receiver T.Y. Hilton will either be out or limited, so that trend could continue even against Houston’s weak pass defense.
It is easy enough to forgive the Houston defense for not knowing how to slow down Lamar Jackson and the Ravens last week. But the Texans’ offense also no-showed on Sunday, which is harder to overlook. Houston generated just 232 yards of total offense, while turning the ball over twice. An offensive line that had given Deshaun Watson plenty of time to work this season allowed six sacks, leading Watson to rush several key plays and resulted in the star quarterback injuring his ankle.
So heading into this game, the questions are plentiful. Can Williams handle a larger role for Indianapolis? If not, can Hilton return from injury to stabilize the passing game? Can Houston’s offense bounce back against a Colts defense that is in the middle of the pack in most metrics? And can anyone truly predict the performance of the Colts — a team that has won as a 10.5-point underdog and lost as an 11-point favorite this season?
Watson’s returning to form, despite the ankle injury, is the most likely of a seemingly endless list of potential scenarios. Pick: Texans -3.5
Source: Football - nytimes.com
