Texans vs. Patriots: Updated Odds, Stat Predictions for 2017 AFC Divisional Game

On Saturday night, the Houston Texas and New England Patriots will do battle in the second game of Divisional Weekend.

On paper, this appears to be one of the biggest mismatches of the second postseason round. The Patriots feature a truly elite signal-caller under center in Tom Brady, while the Texans feature the inconsistent Brock Osweiler. That Patriots also field a defense that allowed an NFL-low 15.6 points per game in the regular season.

Things appear so uneven that our friends over at OddsShark have the Patriots as 16-point favorites.

Upsets can happen, though, especially in the NFL postseason. The Texans boast a defense of their own that is far from a liability. No team allowed fewer yards than the 301.3 per game allowed by Houston in the regular season.

We're going to take a look an in-depth look at the game itself and what we expect to unfold. We'll also be making individual statistical projections and digging into some of the top players and storylines involved in the game.

Stat Projections

Position	Player	Proj. Stats
QB	Tom Brady, NE	375 YDS, 2 TD, INT
QB	Brock Osweiler, HOU	220 YDS, TD, 2 INT
RB	LeGarrette Blount, NE	95 YDS, TD
RB	Dion Lewis, NE	40 YDS, 2 REC, 20 YDS
RB	James White, NE	12 YDS, 4 REC, 20 YDS
RB	Lamar Miller, HOU	80 YDS, 3 REC, 25 YDS
WR	Julian Edelman, NE	5 REC, 75 YDS
WR	Michael Floyd, NE	3 REC, 33 YDS, TD
WR	Chris Hogan, NE	2 REC, 55 YDS
WR	DeAndre Hopkins, HOU	6 REC, 95 YDS
WR	Will Fuller, HOU	4 REC, 42 YDS
TE	Martellus Bennett, NE	4 REC, 48 YDS, TD
TE	C.J. Fiedorowicz, HOU	3 REC, 28 YDS, TD
DEF	New England Patriots	2 INT, FF, 5 Sacks
DEF	Houston Texans	INT, FF, 3 Sacks

Players to Watch

Tom Brady, QB, New England Patriots

Brady was about as reliable and consistent as they come during the regular season. In his 12 appearances, he passed for 3,554 yards with 28 touchdowns and just two interceptions.

A total of 19 quarterbacks passed for more yards than Brady, but the majority of them played a full 16-game schedule. No quarterback has ever finished a season with a better touchdown-to-interceptions ratio.

Brady will face a stiff challenge on Saturday, though. Houston is rated third in pass coverage by Pro Football Focus and allowed an average of just 201.6 yards passing per game in the regular season, second-fewest in the league.

Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels recently explained the challenge, via the team's official website:

"

They're tremendous; the best team we've played in terms of pass defense and the way they're playing. Again, I think it starts with the fact that they're all tied together. They don't play just one coverage; they play a multitude of things depending on the situation you're talking about. They're always in the right position; they play with very good technique.

"

We'd expect the Patriots to rely on short throws and the ground game as much as possible in order to protect Brady. This could lead to a solid if unimpressive performance from the future Hall of Fame signal-caller.

LeGarrette Blount, RB, New England Patriots

Leaning on the ground game will be a lot easier if the Patriots have full use of running back LeGarrette Blount. The bruising runner is one of the top grinders in the league. While he averaged just 3.9 yards per carry in the regular season, he carried the ball enough to rack up 1,161 yards and an impressive 18 touchdowns.

The problem is that there is no guarantee Blount will be 100 percent by Saturday, as he has missed more than one practice this week with an illness.

Still, we can't see an illness keeping Blount out of such an important game entirely. As long as he is healthy enough to earn a moderate workload, Blount should be able to produce some solid numbers too.

While the Texans do have a terrific defense, defending the run has sometimes been a struggle. Pro Football Focus rates the Texans 19th in run defense. We expect close to 100 yards for Blount if he is able to play a full four quarters.

If Blount can't go or is hampered by the illness, expect James White and Dion Lewis to share much of the backfield work. This scenario could potentially lead to more output from Brady, as the Patriots turn to the short-passing game in lieu of Blount's hard running.

DeAndre Hopkins, WR, Houston Texans

If Osweiler and the Texans are going to have any realistic shot at beating the Patriots, they're going to have to consistently move the ball on offense. Doing this may well require Osweiler to lean very heavily on star wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. 

Of course, Hopkins is talented enough that Osweiler should always be feeding him the ball. The fact that he often didn't in the regular season—Hopkins had just 78 receptions after snagging 111 in 2015—may have been a factor in the quarterback's struggles. 

Osweiler may have learned his lesson, though. He played the regular-season finale at quarterback, and Hopkins finished that game with seven receptions and 123 yards.

We do expect Hopkins to see a lot of targets and to catch quite a few balls in this game. However, we're not so sure he'll be able to produce a dominant performance. The Patriots are typically very good at taking away a team's top option.

This Patriots defense is also pretty adept at defending the pass in general. New England is rated fourth in pass coverage by Pro Football Focus and allows an average of 237.9 yards per game through the air.

The one benefit for Houston here is that the Patriots do not field a top-tier pass rush. Pro Football Focus rates the team just 24th in pass rush for the year. This means Osweiler may have enough time in the pocket to occasionally find Hopkins deep down the field.

The problem here is that Osweiler hasn't been especially effective when passing deep. In fact, he completed just 12 of 63 attempts when passing 20 yards downfield or further, according to PFF.