For the second straight season, the Houston Texans head up to the greater New York City area, New Jersey to be exact, to face off against the New York Jets on that horrible slab of pseudo concrete they call the “turf at MetLife Stadium.” Last season, C.J. Stroud’s head got bounced off that turf, concussing him and knocking him out for two games, in a 30-6 loss to a woeful 4-8 Jets team, coached by Robert Saleh and quarterbacked by Zach Wilson.
Well, it’s still that same horrible stadium and playing surface, but this time around it’s future Hall of Famer (playing like anything but) Aaron Rodgers under center, and the head coach is interim coach Jeff Ulbrich, who replaced Saleh a few weeks ago, and is 0-3 as a head coach. The Texans are trying to avoid becoming Ulrich’s first victim, and oddly enough, the oddsmakers have put out a line that says it should happen, with the Jets favored by two points.
The big question here is “What version of a 2-6 team, that’s lost three straight, will the Texans get as their opponent?” Will they get one where pride kicks in for the Jets and their performance matches their talent level, which isn’t bad at all, or will they get a group that cashes in their chips and is making early vacation plans?
We know that the Jets will get an undermanned version of the Texans, with Stefon Diggs out for the season with a torn ACL and Nico Collins out for at least one more game with a pulled hamstring. Outside of all this, here are four things to watch for:
4. Win the chess match
Here is where I start to get a little angry about this two point spread in favor of the Jets. The Houston Texans are coached by DeMeco Ryans, one of the best defensive minds in all of football and one of the brightest culture setters as a head coach. The New York Jets are INTERIM coached by Jeff Ulbrich, who had trouble even knowing how to throw a challenge flag correctly in his debut. Their offensive staff employs Nathaniel Hackett as a demoted OC, and employs Todd Downing as its current OC. Downing is best known for getting a DUI driving home from the airport after a road game while with Tennessee a couple years ago. He is also known for burning through three timeouts in the first quarter of last week’s loss to New England. No way DeMeco is losing to this set of clowns!
3. Texans corners on Jets receivers
This is the most intriguing positional matchup of the game — the Texans’ top two corners, Derek Stingey and Kamari Lassiter against Garrett Wilson and Davante Adams, who will be playing in his third game as a Jet. This will be the most talented pair of top receivers Stingley and Lassiter will have faced since the loss to Minnesota in Week 3. The big question will be how Jalen Pitre handles snaps when he is playing slot corner and gets into matchups in man coverage, which is not Pitre’s strength.
2. Kicking game
The Houston Texans are 12-4 in one score games under DeMeco Ryans, 7-3 in 2023 and 5-1 this season. On the one hand, they are teetering dangerously close to being a .500 team, but on the other hand maybe they have a knack for winning close games. One thing that really helps to that end, winning close games, is a good kicking game. The Texans’ kicker is Ka’imi Fairbairn, one of the best in the game. The Jets’ kicker is Greg Zuerlein, captured here in this video:
Advantage, Texans.
1. Protect Stroud
This will be the number one thing to watch until the Texans’ offensive line proves it can protect C.J. Stroud at a merely average level. It was really bad against Green Bay two weeks ago, and the offensive line managed to outdo itself, in a bad way, against the Colts last week:
The Texans still found a way to win, because C.J. Stroud might be the toughest quarterback in the NFL, taking repeated blows and being chased all day, and still managing to absorb just two sacks.
SPREAD: Jets -2
PREDICTION: Texans 19, Jets 17
SEASON RECORD: 5-3 SU, 1-7 ATS
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
