Indianapolis Colts @ Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts as we know, has not lost a game this season and I'm not seeing them to lose this match. Their offense has one of the best Quarterbacks of all time, QB Peyton Manning, who is doing a tremendous season and he has been the main reason why the Colts are still unbeaten. Peyton Manning can count with WR Pierre Garcon and WR Reggie Wayne as his preferred wide receivers, both are quite good and both have great quality. Manning will also rely on his main weapon, one that he uses much more often than the others, TE Dallas Clark, who is doing an excellent season this year.
We already know how pretty good the Colts' passing game is and their rushing game is not bad at all either. Rusher RB Joseph Addai after a season where he his performances weren't the best, has improved and he is playing quite well this year, not at the same level that he used to a few years ago, but at least, he's somewhat back. To help the Colts on the ground offense, we have RB Donald Brown as Addai's backup and he always manage to gain some good yards every time he carries the ball.
Defensively I have to highlight a couple of things. It is true that the Colts' secondary has suffered a lot lately in the passing game, but we should not forget that when their opponents get into the Colts' red zone, Indy defense can in most cases force their opposition to settle with only the field goal attempt, as we saw last week against the Ravens, where the Indianapolis defense forced the Ravens to go for 5 Fields Goals instead of scoring several touchdowns...
The absence of TE Owen Daniels on Texans side, I believe that the Colts' defense will again do a good work, specially when near their own end zone. Their rushing defense is not bad at all, they can stop the opponent's rush and for this game the Colts D will not need much more effort to stop the Texans' rushing game, which is quite average, so Indy should be able to get the job done.
Houston Texans has lost the last 2 games because their kicker missed important field goals which should cost them this season and now I don't believe that they can even get a wild card. Their offense has a good quarterback, Matt Schaub is doing an excellent season so far and thanks to the weapons he has, such as WR Andre Johnson, one of the best in the league, or WR Kevin Walter, who is a lesser option for QB Matt Schaub to throw his passes. Since TE Owen Daniels was injured, the Texans offense playbook has been virtually reduced to Schaub to Johnson, which makes this offense very predictable.
Their rushing game is not the best nor the worst this season, Houston relies on RB Steve Slaton and backup RB Ryan Moats and these two will have the difficult task of penetrating the Colts' defense and I think that the Texans will not have much success when using the running game.
Defensively, Houston has many difficulties in stopping the opponents' rushing game and certainly Joseph Addai will give them some headaches down the field. Texans' passing defense is average but knowing that they will face Peyton Manning, who can penetrate any defense without great difficulty, we can be assured that they should be dominated by the Colts' passing game on this game, which will make things very hard for Houston to win this game.
Indianapolis has more arguments than the Texans for the win and I sincerely believe that the Colts will win this game by 1 or more touchdowns.
Pick: Indianapolis Colts -3.5 -105 (1.95) The Greek
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