Houston Texans vs. Indianapolis Colts Preview & Prediction | PFF

Houston Texans vs. Indianapolis Colts Preview & Prediction | PFF

PFF is running one of their biggest sales ever. 40% off a PFF plus subscription right now using the promo code black Friday. That means that you get everything fully unlocked. You get the grades, you get the stats, you get all the fantasy advice, the betting advice, which our new player prop tool is available on web as well to make you a smarter better. You’ve got all the draft analysis, the free agency analysis, all of that great stuff. Subscribe.pff.com to get 40% off a year-long PFF Plus subscription. Get it now. the Texans and the Colts in battle this Sunday as we travel the Sunday slate uh in week 13 here in the NFL. Um you know a couple weeks ago I think this would have been an easy game to pick especially with this game beat Indianapolis. I think everybody would have just said oh yeah here here’s the Colts are going to run through them again. You know Texans don’t have the offense. They don’t have the offensive line. The defense is good but is it good enough? And now I feel like a lot of that stuff is going in Houston’s favor as of late. So, uh, you talking about Houston here or you want to talk about Indianapolis? I I think when Houston has the football and we’re not sure yet if CJ Stout is going to be back or if it’ll be Davis Mills one more time, but you’re going to see some really fun battles on the outside. Some one-on-one matchups. Nico Collins, Jaden Higgins, Christian Kirk, Jaylen Null against the Colts secondary that’s obviously added Sauce Gardner and gotten Chavarius Ward back healthy recently. Really good trio of corners they have with those two and Kenny Moore. And what the Colts have done since they’ve traded for Gardner, reasonably so, is they’ve gone to a lot more man coverage. Before they traded for him, less than a 25% man coverage rate, 13th in the NFL. Louis Anarumo getting a little more aggressive than the old defensive coordinator, but not to the extent that he’s done their last couple of games. 42% second in the NFL, just behind the Cleveland Browns. He’s taken full advantage and had a plan of what to do with S Gardner in this secondary. It’s more man coverage. It’s more aggressive at the line of scrimmage, more press up near the line of scrimmage. So, you’re talking about, I think, a lot of fun battles, especially between Collins and Gardner that are going to happen on the outside. But don’t forget about these slot threats and Kirk and Jaylen Null going against Kenny Moore. I think it’s really going to be big to see if the Texans can create and isolate those one-on-one matchups, especially if Davis Mills is playing again. That’s really been kind of his area of expertise in these three starts is finding one-on-one matchups on the outside to take advantage of. But you’re going to see some fun battles out there between between the Texans wide receiving core and the Colts quarterbacks with all the man coverage they’re playing right now. It’s it’s it’s fun to see it’s fun to see that evolution for defensive coordinators truly taking the phrase like well we’ll we’ll call the scheme for the strengths of our players. And I don’t think every coach always means that especially as much as they should. But certainly, this is a situation where when you have a player who can win one-on-one as your CB-1, that allows you to sort of change your coverage and get more aggressive. So, that’s cool to see. On the Colt side of things for offense, and we’ve talked about this over the last couple of weeks, but getting into more of these numbers specifically, Daniel Jones is behind only Trevor Lawrence since week nine with 10 turnover worthy plays. Now, the difference there is that the Jags have played four games since week nine. The Colts have only played three. So really when you look at it from that stretch, the most turnover worthy plays per game average over the last month, Daniel Jones is the worst in the NFL at that number. So obviously never a statistic that you want to boast. But when you categorize some of those turnover worthy plays, only five of them are passing. Five of them are fumble related. So obviously he’s got to first and foremost hang on to the ball better, not fumble the football. That’s an easier fix here. The tougher fix is the five turnover worthy plays that he has had passing have all come when he is under pressure. All of them. All five. So unfortunately, we’re kind of starting to write the book on Daniel Jones right now. Whereas at the beginning of the year, no one was really able to get after him. The offensive line was playing better. the run game was so effective that they could have teams on their heels and they couldn’t be more aggressive to attack the pocket because well they’d just be able to run around the blitz and get to the outside and they were able to counter that very very well. But like we’ve talked about before if they can’t run the football if they’re struggling to run the football then putting the it’s not just putting the ball in Daniel Jones hands. It’s sort of the domino effect that has happens after that when you put them in these more obvious passing situations and you know they’re going to drop back send some extra pressure and Daniel Jones has been known to put that ball at risk and I think that’s something that does not bode well this week right this is the best defense in the NFL right now when it comes to a points per game average 12 weeks into the season had to get to week 13 they’re top five in the NFL at overall defensive grade they have two of the best defensive ends in the NFL and Will Anderson Jr. and Danell Hunter, best edge rush duo in the NFL for sure. So, I I think the pressure’s coming and unfortunately until Jones shows me that he can handle that pressure, this even goes back to his days with the Giants where this was an issue for him. So, I’m actually going to take the Texans in this game. Davis Mills has been playing well enough to where I feel pretty good about this and I think it’ll be close because it’s in Indianapolis. I feel like this will be a really tight game, but give me the Texans 21, Colts 20. This game I I think the Texans at this point, they kind of are what they are. They’re playing better. They’re waiting on CJ Strad to get back. The defense is outstanding. It’s maybe the best pass defense in football this year. This game is going to be won or lost by the Colts on early downs. If Jonathan Taylor can dominate, put them in good down and distance situations, get those explosive runs against what’s still a relatively softer Houston Texans interior defensive line, but their linebackers have been supporting it well. So, they haven’t been too bad on the ground, actually six in the league in run defense grade. If Taylor can dominate on early downs, then the Colts will be in a good spot here and they can find a way to win this game. If the Texans stop the run in the same way that Kansas City did last week, and if their defensive line can dominate in the same way a few weeks ago that Pittsburgh did in Pittsburgh against the Colts, then I think the Colts have a real problem here. Cuz I, you’re right, I don’t want Daniel Jones on third and eight very much. I don’t want anybody on third and eight very much against this Texans defense. But especially him knowing that he’s not willing to throw the ball downfield into tight windows, right, against this secondary, I’m worried about that. And if that’s the biggest question we’re asking is at the quarterback spot against a defense like this, I I have issues. I mean, you saw after the first drive of the game, the Texans shut down the Bills running game as well as the game went on. So, I’ve got the Texans also 20 to7. I think they overwhelmed Jones and win this one. Wow. Okay. So, the Colts are, as of right now, we’re recording the show on Wednesday, favored by four and a half. And we both just took the Houston Texans to uh to win out right there.

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The Houston Texans and The Indianapolis Colts.

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