Game Analysis

Houston (-1.5) vs BALTIMORE

• Baltimore has so many injuries on both sides of the ball, I went back and used our Priors model to price this team with the current roster. The defense is without All-Pro CB Marlon Humphrey, All-Pro LB Roquan Smith, Pro Bowl iDL Nnamdi Madubuike, and starting CB Nate Wiggins as well as depth interior defensive line piece Broderick Washington. From a remaining talent standpoint, that puts them slightly below the Raiders & Panthers defenses for last in the NFL.
• The Ravens offense would’ve been rated 24th coming into the season with Cooper Rush as the starter instead of Lamar Jackson or about 2 points worse than average. However, Baltimore’s offense will also be without Pro Bowl LT Ronnie Stanley on Sunday, so we’ll downgrade them another half point.
• The current lineup for the Ravens is 5 points worse than average, so they’d still be favored over a few teams in the league with their current personnel, but they’re near the bottom.
• The Texans have been disappointing thus far, playing as a -1.5 rating when Houston’s prior was a half point better than average. The Texans offense has just a 38% success rate (30th) mostly due to the offensive line grading 27th in pass blocking by PFF.
• The price for this game should be Houston -1.5 if you give Baltimore 2 points for home field and our model predicts 41.6 points but a 212-127-6 Under angle applies to Baltimore. I used Houston -1.5 in my pool.