Houston Texans @

Denver Broncos

Sun, Nov 4
1:05 PM Pacific
Rotation: 465
Odds: Denver Broncos -1, Total: 46

Game Analysis

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Lean – Over (46) – DENVER (-1) vs Houston

It’s not often you see a team trade a player to their opponent less than a week before they play, but that’s exactly what we have here with veteran wide-receiver Demaryius Thomas moving from Denver to Houston. The Texans lost Will Fuller for the season last Thursday night and wanted to make a move to provide Deshaun Watson with a secondary option to pair with DeAndre Hopkins. For what it’s worth our metrics value Fuller at 0.3 points and Thomas at 0.5 points so Houston should improve slightly, but they will also benefit from Denver’s offense losing a half point of expected production in this game.

Denver’s top CB Chris Harris mainly plays inside for the Broncos as he leads all nickelbacks with 0.47 yards allowed per slot cover snap. However, Texans’ star WR DeAndre Hopkins does most of his work on the outside and won’t be affected by Harris. Hopkins leads the NFL with 14 contested catches and should do damage across from Bradley Roby, who’s conceding 1.66 yards per cover snap (8th-worst) and is banged-up after leaving last week’s game with an ankle injury.

Deshaun Watson will be hoping both Hopkins and his new target Thomas get open early in plays as his offensive line, ranked 2nd-worst in pass blocking efficiency, has an unfavorable matchup versus Denver’s edge rushing tandem. Kendall Lamm has been an improvement over Martinas Rankin since taking over at right tackle in week 4, but he’s still a below average player and will have his hands full against Von Miller, who’s already recorded 8 sacks this season (2nd). Meanwhile, Bradley Chubb actually has a better pass rushing efficiency than Miller and could be making a run at the all-time rookie sack record, especially after this game lining up across from Julie’n Davenport, who is the worst left tackle in the league.

The Broncos boast our 3rd-rated ground game and rookie Philip Lindsay leads all qualifying runners with a 52% rush success rate. Lindsay should thank his offensive line though, as he’s gained 52.2% of his rushing yards before first contact, the most in the NFL, and he’ll need his excellent blocking to continue against Houston’s 5th-ranked rush defense. The Texans defense will now be without its top three cornerbacks at the start of the year with Johnathan Joseph not expected to suit up, but the Broncos don’t have the personnel to take advantage. Emmanuel Sanders is Denver’s only remaining threat at wide receiver and he runs 65% of his routes from the slot. Tyrann Mathieu has been solid on the inside for Houston surrendering 0.73 yards per cover snap in the slot (11th) and the Honey Badger should do a good job limiting Sanders.

Our model favors the Broncos by less than a point so there’s no value on the side in this game. However, our model projects 48.7 total points, in part due to excellent projected weather conditions, and I’ll lean Over 46 points or less.

  • Team Stats
  • Game Log
  • Texans
  • Broncos
HOU
Offense
Defense



Pass



  • Pass Plays 34.0 37.5
  • Succ Pass Plays 46.9% 47.1%
  • Sack Rate 8.7% 7.2%
  • Int Rate 2.8% 3.2%
  • Deep Pass Rate 20.7% 16.9%
  • Big Pass Yards 39.9% 39.7%
  • NYPP 7.7 6.7



Rush


  • Rush Plays 30.8 26.8
  • RB YPR 3.5 3.3
  • Stuff Rate 24.4% 23.8%
  • Succ Rush Plays 41.4% 40.1%
  • Big Rush Yards 40.4% 24.8%
  • Yards Per Rush 4.0 3.5




Game

  • All Snaps 64.8 64.3
  • Early Down Succ 45.4% 43.4%
  • Succ Rate 44.7% 43.6%
  • Big Yards Rate 41.3% 35.1%
  • Yards Per Play 5.9 5.2
  • Fumble Lost Rate 0.8% 1.2%
  • Time Per Play (sec) 28.4 30.3
  • Run Ratio 47.7% 43.3%
  • Starting Field Pos 31.8 24.9
  • Game Control 0.8 -0.8
 
  • Points 24.6 20.9
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