Bills vs Texans Picks – NFL Week 12 Thursday Night Football with Kyle Kirms

Bills vs Texans Picks – NFL Week 12 Thursday Night Football with Kyle Kirms

Yo, what’s up? Welcome back to another episode of the SWAS. We’re into NFL week 12 Thursday Night Football, Buffalo Houston. Also, there’s a Thursday night college football game, but I have no interest in it at all. So, I’ll briefly mention it at the end. I mean, is Cooper Russ two and a half points? I would hope Quinners put up a decent statline against Arizona State. If he didn’t, we have a real problem. You can say the same thing about Kraton. Okay, they had the one good game against Kansas at home. When Toast talks about the kicking market, it’s like some earth is flat Andy, true or false, this is going to be a dog walking. Dog walking. This is my dog walking of the day. I think it’s going to be very ugly. I think this is going to be ugly. Hey, get this to us. All right, Thursday night football. We got Buffalo on the road in Houston. Uh we get to see a rematch of what was a wild game last year. Um, McDermott’s coaching decisions definitely called into question. For those of you that don’t remember, Buffalo went into Houston week five last year. So, the game was tied 2020. Tie game. 32 seconds left. The Bills get the ball back on their own three. Three yd line with 32 seconds left. The Bills have the ball in a tied game. So, what you would expect them to do is run the ball, make Houston chew their timeouts. The Bills dropped Josh Allen back to pass from his own end zone three times through three consecutive incomplete passes. They punted. Houston gets the ball back on Buffalo’s 46. Completes a 5-yd pass. Calls a timeout that they probably shouldn’t have had. And there was only like 7 seconds left on the clock at that point. So, they were able to complete a 5-yd pass, call a timeout, and kick the game-winning field goal. If they didn’t have that timeout, they probably wouldn’t have been able to do that. Now, obviously, Monday morning quarterback, it’s always easy to criticize coaching decisions after the fact, but there was a a lot of criticism about that coaching decision. Um, but regardless, we saw a great game and specifically, we saw Houston’s defense give Josh Allen all kinds of problems in that one. That was I think this was Josh Allen’s worst game of the season was week five on the road at Houston. 131 yards, 56-4 pass rerating in the game, was under a ton of pressure, which is pretty part for the course when a quarterback goes into Houston. And I mean, that’s the marquee matchup, right? Buffalo’s offense against Houston’s defense. I think at this point, it’s fair to say that Houston has the best defense in the NFL. Certainly at home in Houston. I mean, they’re third in success rate, first in EPA per play. Buffalo’s offense sixth and third. This is going to be quite the battle on this side of the ball. Now, Houston’s defense definitely won this battle last year. And it makes sense because Houston does have the correct recipe to give Josh Allen problems. You take the runaway, which Houston’s defense can definitely do, and you generate pressure without blitzing, which is exactly what Houston does. In fact, they very rarely blitz, a blitz rate under 19%, one of the lowest in the NFL, and they’re still third in pressure. Uh, so yeah, they’re able to generate a ton of pressure without sending extra rushers, which is exactly what you need to do to give Josh Allen problems. And I think it’s very realistic they’re able to take the runaway here. Buffalo’s run game hasn’t even looked that efficient recently. Uh, last three games, 4.1 yards per carry, under 38% success rate per rush, under 109 rushing yards per game. Remember, this is an offense that wants to run the ball first. Um, in fact, their last road game was on the road in Miami. They couldn’t run the ball at all against the Dolphins defense. So, I don’t think they’re going to be able to run the ball here against Houston. Now, just because Buffalo’s rushing numbers don’t look very efficient, that doesn’t mean Josh Allen isn’t playing well. In fact, that’s not true at all. Josh Allen looks great in his last I mean, he just had six touchdowns in the Bucks game. I think it was three rushing and three passing. Yeah, I mean, he’s been excellent. 1087 passer rating, over 298 passing yards per game in his last three. So, I mean, Josh Allen’s been fine, but I without the run against a team that can pressure the passer without blitzing, this is a team that gave him This is an exact building that gave him a ton of problems last year. Yeah, I I think Houston’s defense is going to give him all kinds of fits just like they did last year. Uh, we’ve got slight injuries on both sides here. No Curtis Samuel, no Dalton Concaid for the Bills offense. Uh, Cle Shakir is gonna play though. He was limited in practice. There was talk that he might be questionable. I’m pretty I don’t even think he’s on the injury report anymore. So, Shahir should be good to go. Other than that, Bills are at pretty in pretty good shape here on the Houston side. No Petri at Nickel. Uh Jimmy Ward’s not new. He’s been injured. That’s not a new injury. Um Al Shier, Will Anderson both looking like they’re going to play. They’re listed as questionable, but from what I’m reading, they should both be out there. So, as a whole on this side of the ball, I think Houston’s defense is equipped to give Josh Allen all kinds of problems in this game, just like they did last year. Maybe it’s not quite as bad as last year. I mean, Josh Allen was actually terrible in this game last year. So, maybe it’s not that bad, but I don’t think the run’s going to be there. This is probably the best defense in the NFL. Certainly at home, they’re the best defense in the NFL. So, yeah, this is a really tough matchup for the Bills offensively. I mean, the question comes on the other side of the ball, right? Can we trust Houston’s offense here? I know there’s a lot of concern surrounding this offense right now. I mean, they did almost lose a game to the Titans. I got to say though, that was an absolutely terrible spot. There was a reason Tennessee plus 7 and a half was my top bet of the week. Well, it was actually one of my two top bets of the week. I loved the Titans plus 7 and a half last week. What did it close at? Like five or something. Yeah, I I loved the Titans last week. The reason was this is a beautiful spot for Tennessee. I mean, you got Houston going on the road to play a division game against a Titans team that was in the ultimate buy low spot. They had been injured. They’re coming off a buy. They were healthier. Two weeks to prep for a division game. Backup quarterback in uh yeah, the Titans defensive front played great. Cam board didn’t exactly play well, but he played Houston’s defense. The point I’m making here is I’m not taking a ton away from this data point. I fully expected Houston to struggle in this game. Now they come back home where they’ve been significantly better. Like not even close. And that’s not specific to this year. That applies to the last few years. Houston’s a team that plays much better at home. And I mean, you look at their efficiency numbers. It tells the story here in their home games. Offensively, we don’t really view Houston as a powerful offense. 5.9 yards per play, over 45% success rate, over 24 points per game. This offense actually has been efficient in their home games. And the defense, 5.1 yards per play, 16.4. four points allowed per game. This team has played pretty well at home. Obviously, there’s still no CJ Stout and that’s a concern. Uh Titus Howard, the tackle, is also listed as questionable. Other than that, Houston is at full strength offensively. Same injury report for the Bills defense. Still no Taylor W, still no Ed Oliver, but neither of those injuries are new. Both have been out for several games now. So, both of these units a little bit banged up in terms of how they match up. I mean, are we finally looking at a football game where Houston’s able to run the ball? They haven’t been able to run the ball efficiently all year, 32nd in success rate per rush, 28th in EPA per rush, but they’re at home against the Bills defense with no Ed Oliver. The Bills can’t seem to stop anybody on the ground. And the thing with Houston’s offense is, and look, I want to be clear, by no means am I saying the that the Houston Texans offense is good, that Davis Mills is an efficient quarterback, none of that. But I think there’s a perception that Houston’s offense is absolutely terrible with Davis Mills. And I think that perception comes from what we watched in the Denver game where he came in midame when CJ Stra got hurt because it was virtually unwatchable. I don’t even know if they got a first down. It was absolutely terrible against Denver. But in the two games since then, we’ve seen Davis Mills start and play two complete football games. They’re averaging 26 points per game, success rate over 50%, 5.8 yards per play. Again, I want to be clear. I do not think Houston’s offense is good with Davis Mills. I’m just saying the perception is this offense is absolutely terrible with this quarterback. If you actually look at the efficiency numbers, actually looks pretty good offensively in the last two games. And I mean, we’re talking about a game where Davis Mills might actually have run support. Look at the Bills defensive numbers against the run in their last five games. They’re allowing 61 rushing yards per game, 5.5 yards per carry, over 42% success rate per rush. The Bucks haven’t been able to run the ball all year. The Falcons have been one of the least efficient rushing attacks in the NFL this year. The Dolphins can run the ball. Chief’s not really a rushing offense. Carolina was running the ball for a little bit there. I mean, there’s no other way to say this. Every single team that plays Buffalo is able to run the ball. So even though Houston can’t run the ball at all at home against this Bills defense, I think Woody Marks, Nick Chub, I think they might be able to run the ball in this game. So I feel like at six, the the play has to be Houston. I can’t believe I’m even saying that, but I feel like it has to be Houston. If you isolate it to just Buffalo’s games on the road and Houston games at home, I mean, look at the Bills road games this year. Yeah, they beat up on the Jets 30-10. They got their ass beat by the Falcons. The Falcons are three-7, by the way. They beat the Bills ass in that game. Then they blew Carolina out and then they got smoked by the Dolphins. So, let’s not act like the idea of Buffalo struggling against maybe a less than stellar football team on the road is so unfathomable. We’ve seen this team get smoked by the Falcons and smoked by the Dolphins. So, it’s not out of the question that Buffalo could struggle in this road game. And if we look at just Houston’s home games this year, they lost the game to the Bucks in week two. I still don’t know how they lost that game. remember that was like the fourth and 13 where Baker ran for it and and the B and the Bucks scored at the end to win. I was on Houston in the game. It was heartbreaking. I don’t know how they lost that game. They blew out the Titans. They beat San Francisco handedly. Denver, they were winning that game by a touchdown when CJ Stra got hurt and then it came down to the end. Denver kicked a field goal at the end to win it. That’s a Denver team that’s currently sitting at 9 and two, by the way. They almost beat him. They would have been one of the only few teams that beat Denver this year. and then they just came from behind to beat not a good Jacksonville team, but not a bad team. So, Houston’s been formidable at home. We’ve seen the Bills lay some eggs on the road this year. At a full six, I feel like the play has to be Houston. I haven’t bet this yet. If I do pull the trigger on this one, it would only be Houston. I also, this is even uglier. I also don’t hate an over at 43 and a half. So, as of right now, I don’t have anything on this game, but my picks would be Houston plus 6. I would probably make the game four and a half. So at plus six, maybe slight little edge there. As far as the total, I would make it 44 and a half. So at 43 and a half, slightly into the over. Uh, this will be an interesting game. I’m interested to see if Houston’s able to run the ball. So yeah, Houston and over for me. Real quick, the college football game is between Louisiana and Arkansas State. Arkansas State’s on a nice little wing. Well, actually, they’re not on the winning streak anymore. They just had that winning streak snapped in a game. They lost 27-21 to Southern Miss. They turned the ball over six times in the game. So, their winning streak uh just ended. The reason I’m passing on the game is I really don’t know what this Louisiana team is. So, they started off the season, remember their quarterback from last year, Waldridge, is on I believe he’s Drake May’s backup on the Patriots now. So, they lost their NFL caliber quarterback from last year. Um so, the the guy they brought in through the transfer portal was Walker Howard. He’s out for the season. So, then they had another quarterback in. They have since switched to another quarterback. His name is Lunch Winfield, who the offense actually looks better the last couple games, but they haven’t played any defenses. So, I really don’t know what this Louisiana team is. If it’s under a field goal, if you force me to bet it, I would take Arkansas State if you can get a two and a half. But yeah, I I won’t be touching this one. Thanks for watching. Live shows at midnight Eastern time. As always, if you’re able to make it, we’d love to see you in the comments. Let’s have ourselves a nice Thursday night. Remember to bet responsibly. Talk to you later.

Kyle Kirms shares his breakdowns and picks for the Week 12 Thursday Night Football game between the Buffalo Bills and Houston Texans on November 20th, 2025.

0:00 Intro
0:42 Bills @ Texans
11:05 Louisiana @ Arkansas State

#nfl #nflpicks #thursdaynightfootball