We have reached the Divisional Round of the NFL 2024 Playoffs and they get underway in the AFC as the number one seeds Kansas City Chiefs play host to the Houston Texans with the winner progressing to play for the Conference title next week.
These two met just prior to Christmas when the Chiefs were victorious and they will be hoping for a repeat of that while the Texans will be looking to build on the momentum of their win last week to cause an almighty upset.
Kansas City Chiefs
The Kansas City Chiefs have been defending their title all season but their title defence really officially gets underway here. I say that because they have never not been on track for a place in the playoffs and they haven’t really played a pressure game since the Super Bowl last season. It will be interesting to see if the Chiefs still have it in their locker to come through these high pressure matches. The number of tight matches that they won in the regular season suggests that they will but none of them had the jeopardy that this one has on it.
Kansas City achieved the number one seeding with a 15-2 record which was 15-1 until they rested near enough every starter that they had against the Denver Broncos in their final match in the regular season. It will be interesting to see how they start here because that was two weeks ago so the starters haven’t seen the field for three weeks and they might need a few drives to get back up to speed. They might well get that time but it can’t be relied upon.
Special Offer
Sign up for a Boylesports account and bet £10 to get up to £20 in free bets! Perfect offer for the NFL! Click the image below for this great offer! New accounts only. 18+ T&Cs apply. Gamble Aware.
Houston Texans
The one thing that the Houston Texans have going for them is that they have been in the pressure cooker of a knockout match and they came out on the right side of it. They did that last week against the Los Angeles Chargers in a contest that few thought they would come out on top in despite the fact that they were at home. They should take a lot of confidence from that and while this isn’t a free hit or a match where they have nothing to lose, it is one where nobody expects them to win outside of their building so the pressure isn’t as intense as it could be.
The big thing for the Texans last week is how well they defended. That clearly has to be a trend which follows them to Arrowhead Stadium for this match but if they do defend well they do have it in them offensively to get the job done here. C.J. Stroud is going to need to play a clean game for that to happen and you would imagine part of the Texans’ game plan will be to run the ball as much as they can and kill the clock and keep Patrick Mahomes off the field. Whether they can implement that remains to be seen.
Betting
I think the Kansas City Chiefs will win this match but they have been a really poor team at covering spreads this season and the spread is greater than the margin of victory when these two met less than a month ago. In saying that, the Chiefs are fresh and could pull away in the fourth quarter against a side who might tire having had a tough game last week so I’m going to leave all the match markets alone and focus on a player prop for the expected game state.
That game state should see Kansas City Chiefs in front in which case their pass rush will go at C.J. Stroud knowing there isn’t going to be much joy in the running game or the chance to run as much as they would like so Stroud will need to get the ball out of his hands quickly and running back Joe Mixon could be his best friend for that. Mixon has a receiving yards line of 16.5 which is low in that situation as he would cover this with a bit to spare were he even to take three catches. Mixon averaged a nudge over 22 yards per game in the receiving department in the regular season and is 9-5 for covering this total. I think he sees enough of the ball in the passing game to cover here too.
Tips
Back J.Mixon – Over 16.5 receiving yards for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with Coral