NFL Week 2 and we will see the Houston Texans travel to the West Coast to take on the Oakland Raiders. The game has a start time of 4:25 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on CBS. Current Vegas odds have the Texans listed as 3 point favorites, while the total is set at 40.
Analysis: The Houston Texans suffered through a miserable 2013 as they lost their last 14 games of the year to finish at 2-14, but this year they have gotten off to a nice start after beating the Redskins last week by a final score of 17-6. Last year the Texans ranked 31st in the league in scoring, at 17.3 ppg, while also ranking 11th in total yards (347.3 ypg), 15th in passing (238.3 ypg) and 20th in rushing (108.9 ypg). Ryan Fitzpatrick should start the season as the QB, but the Texans have brought in Ryan Mallet, who eventually should take over the starting duties. the Cougars still have Arian Foster at RB and WR’s Andre Johnson and DeAndre Hopkins, who form a lethal downfield duo. Defensively, the Texans ranked 24th in points allowed (26.8 ppg), 7th in yards allowed (317.6 ypg), 3rd vs the pass (195.2 ypg) and 22nd vs the run (122.4 ypg). This is a much better defense than those number showed and they did show that in the opener by allowing Washington just 246 yards in the game.
The Oakland Raiders lost their opener to the Jets in a hard fought 19-14 game. It really wasn't as close as the final would indicate as they were outgained by 244 yards, while being held to a mere 158 yards in total in the game. Pathetic offense for sure. Rookie QB Derick Carr was 20 of 32 for 151 yards, with 2 TDs and no picks in the game. He didn't have a bad game, but also wasn't helped out by their ground attack that ran for just 25 yards in the game. The defense was a bit shaky, as they allowed a pretty weak Jets defense to put up 402 yards of total offense in the game. The Oakland Raiders have won just 8 games the last two years and after another weak draft for them the prospects of them turning it around anytime soon are not all that good, especially if they don't get that offense going.
Pick: I have to go with the Under in this one. The Raiders offense is bad and they struggled vs the Jets last week and now face a Houston defense that may be better than that. Last year the numbers for the Texans defense showed a rather bad defense, but it wasn't all their fault as they were put in bad situations from their offense, plus the points allowed was skewed a bit by all the pick-sixes that Schaub threw. This was not a bad defense last year and they showed that in game 1 vs the Skins. They should have just as good a showing in this one. The Houston offense is not very explosive and will use their run game allot which should eat clock. Ryan Fitzpatrick is a solid QB, but not a great deep threat QB. Both teas will have to work the long field with time consuming drives in order to score. Very hard to see more than 35 points in this one.
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NFL Free Picks: Houston Texans vs Oakland Raiders Betting
What pro football bettors need to know about betting Houston Texans vs Oakland Raiders on Sunday (9/14/14) - a free pick from Pregame.com's Scott Spreitzer with added insight from Steve Fezzik.