The NFL postseason gets underway on Saturday evening and it starts with a divisional clash for a place in the divisional round of the playoffs next week. The Houston Texans, champions of the AFC South, take on the Indianapolis Colts in the first of four games this weekend.
The Texans secured home field advantage with their win over the Jacksonville Jaguars last week while the Indianapolis Colts played knockout football against the Tennessee Titans and lived to tell the tale.
Houston Texans
If you had told the Houston Texans that they would be hosting a match in the first week of the postseason when they had lost their opening three matches of the campaign I suspect your arm would have been snapped off but that is very much the case. The play of Deshaun Watson has been a lot to do with their turnaround but he hasn’t been the only factor.
They say that defences win championships and with that in mind the pass rush of the Houston Texans have to be respected for as long as their season remains live. They have a good running game as well so really all the tools are in place for them to be dangerous over the next few weeks but ticking the boxes is one thing, holding their nerve is something quite different.
Indianapolis Colts
The Houston Texans are not the only team who have produced a second half of the regular season turnaround to make it into the postseason. They have won nine of their last 10 matches to end up with a 10-6 record for the year and there is a feeling that they are surging at the right time. While some teams have doubts over getting over the line in knockout football, we saw last week that the concern doesn’t exist with the Colts.
What does exist though is a question over whether their defence will stand up to the scrutiny of a road match against a motivated divisional rival with everything on the line. They defended pretty well last week but in truth there is a world of difference between the Texans offense and the Titans’ equivalent.
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Betting
I’m a little bit surprised that the Houston Texans are the sort of price that they are for this match but I’m not confident enough in them to take them here. I suspect we are going to see the Colts be aggressive throughout this match in keeping with the way they have performed throughout this run of theirs.
With that in mind I’m expecting TY Hilton to be a busy boy in this match. He has already caught for more than 100 yards in both matches against the Texans this season and he has covered an 82.5 receiving yards line in five of his last seven outings. That is his line here and given that in one of his two where he didn’t cover he only caught two passes but still had 61 yards against Tennessee last week there is enough to suggest that he’ll go beyond 82.5 yards in receiving here.
Tips
WON – Back TY.Hilton – Over 82.5 receiving yards for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfair
Back him here:
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