practice participation<\/a>, Gonzalez appears to be further along and not an unrealistic candidate to be cleared by Sunday. Obviously, that would be good news for a New England pass defense that shined last Sunday. But even if he is not cleared in time and assuming Collins will be a no-go as well, the team should be able to find success against the Texans\u2019 passing game. As long as Christian Kirk and Jayden Higgins in particular are held in check, the 17th-best passing offense in the NFL in EPA per play (0.083) could have a hard time against a Patriots D trending up. | Edge: Patriots<\/p>\nPatriots rushing offense vs. Texans run defense: New England\u2019s ground game has made tremendous strides in recent weeks, but, much like its passing game, will go up against one of the top units in football. The Texans are ranked in the top-10 in multiple statistical categories versus the run, including a third-place ranking in EPA per carry (-0.124). The Patriots do have the dual-threat element added by Drake Maye as well as Rhamondre Stevenson playing the best football of his career, but at the end of the day the run game often comes down to winning individual matchups along the line of scrimmage. Given who they will be up against not just up. front but lurking at the second level as well, doing so on a consistent down-to-down basis will be a tall order. | Edge: Texans<\/p>\n
Patriots run defense vs. Texans rushing offense: Houston dominated on the ground against Pittsburgh, with Woody Marks and Nick Chubb combining to gain 160 yards on 29 carries for an average of 5.5 yards per run. The question is whether that performance was an outlier or concrete proof of the Texans run game having turned the corner after some uneven outings during the regular season. But also, if it has, will be enough versus New England? Fact is, after all, that the Patriots\u2019 ability to stop the run has increased significantly with Milton Williams and Robert Spillane back in the lineup. Add the fact that Khyiris Tonga and Harold Landry are both on the up as well, and the resurgent Texans rushing attack might be in for a challenge. | Edge: Patriots<\/p>\n
The Patriots\u2019 special teams group had one of its best performances of the season against the Chargers, but keeping the momentum going in order to find similar success versus Houston will not be easy. The Texans, after all, have performed at a solid level throughout the year in the game\u2019s third phase, and are New England\u2019s statistical equal in most categories. The only uneven matchups are punt return (advantage NE), tackling (advantage NE), place kicking (advantage HOU) and coverage (advantage HOU). With no unit obviously superior this season, we are going off most recent performance and game location. Both of those favor the home team. | Edge: Patriots<\/p>\n
The Patriots and Texans are not in the divisional round by accident but because they have performed at a high level all year, including on the coaching side of things. On Sunday, this very much could be a deciding factor especially for New England: Can Josh McDaniels scheme his way around what is a somewhat basic but highly-performing Texans defense? And can Zak Kuhr keep his foot on the gas against another offense that has looked good this season but is not among the truly elite units in the NFL? The Patriots\u2019 chances of victory might hinge on both of those happening, but given a) McDaniels\u2019 track record and b) Kuhr\u2019s latest game, we are somewhat optimistic on their behalf. | Edge: Patriots<\/p>\n
If you kept score, you can see that we gave the Patriots an edge in five of the six categories. However, don\u2019t be lured into a false sense of security here: this is a high-class Texans team capable of outperforming its opposition in all parts of the game. Just take special teams, which is basically a default edge for New England based on the fact that the game is taking place in their home arena. Meanwhile, the Texans\u2019 talent on defense might become too much to overcome even for a top quarterback in the league or the most sophisticated of schemes.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, the game should be a tight one. And while we certainly see a path to victory for the Patriots \u2014 eliminate mistakes on offense, shore up against the run on defense \u2014 getting there against a team as good as Houston\u2019s, especially on one side of the ball, is easier said than done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even though it was tightly contested for much of the night, the New England Patriots\u2019 wild card playoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[7,221,253,2368,57371,91604,1095,6,222],"class_list":{"0":"post-679305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-texans","11":"tag-houstontexans","12":"tag-new-england-patriots-game-previews","13":"tag-new-england-patriots-playoffs","14":"tag-new-england-patriots-opinion","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-texans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115899350816322819","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}