The Houston Texans take on the Baltimore Ravens Sunday at 12:00 p.m. CT at M&T Bank Stadium in a tilt that is early jockeying for first-round bye positioning. If the Texans win, they will achieve a 7-3 mark and drop the Ravens to the same record. However, Houston will have the tiebreaker, and thus take the No. 2 spot in the AFC, if the playoffs were to start next week.
The Texans are coming off of their bye, but experts don’t see it helping them much.
usa today takes the ravens
Each week, Touchdown Wire presents their NFL game previews for the week. Here is what Matthew Stevens had to write:
Ravens’ keys: Baltimore has to get pressure on QB Deshaun Watson. Offensively, Baltimore has to get into a rhythm in the passing game to take advantage of a suspect secondary.
Texans’ keys: Contain QB Lamar Jackson from breaking out of the pocket and stop RB Mark Ingram on the ground. Putting Baltimore into third-and-long situations will force Jackson into obvious passing situations and open up the possibility of mistakes.
Who wins? This game comes down to how well the Texans can contain Jackson. Once the Ravens get on a roll offensively, they’re nearly impossible to stop. Ravens 34, Texans 27
nfl.com takes baltimore in a close one
It’s a shame the NFL didn’t flex a game with two of the leading MVP candidates to Sunday Night Football, but I suppose you have to squeeze in Trubisky-Goff II while you still can. The Ravens are among the most improved teams since September, with the offense hitting the stratosphere and the defense steadily improving. The Texans remain mysterious. The best performance from their mediocre defense came without J.J. Watt in London. Their offense is playing against expectations with good pass protection and little vertical passing. Both teams are impossible to prepare for on third down because there is no perfect play call against Deshaun Watson and Lamar Jackson. In a coin-flip matchup, the overpowering Ravens rushing attack remains the defining group of two teams that can transform so seamlessly from week to week.
espn goes with the ravens
Ravens reporter Jamison Hensley and Texans reporter Sarah Barshop collaborated on the predictions, and both agreed that Baltimore would come away with the win. Here is a blurb from their writeup:
Stat to know: The Texans got four sacks against Jacksonville in their first game without defensive end J.J. Watt this season, but they struggled to win consistently in the trenches. According to ESPN’s pass rush win rate using NFL Next Gen Stats, the Texans beat their blocks within 2.5 seconds just 28% of the time in Week 9 without Watt, compared to 44% in their first eight games.
