Houston's ability to move the ball against Jacksonville should decide this one in a battle for the AFC South cellar. Lay the points on the Texans versus the Jaguars.
Houston should have no problem out-gaining the Jaguars in this game, but Sage Rosenfels is probably going to have to keep his interception count to two or less to win by more than a field goal.
Rosenfels has averaged an impressive 7.5 yards per pass play (against teams that would allow just 6.0 yppp to an average QB), but he’s also thrown a not so impressive 9 interceptions on just 148 passes thrown. Rosenfels is not likely to get picked off at that high a rate going forward but his horrendous 5.2% career interception rate still suggests an average of 1.6 picks per game going forward. Houston’s offense will certainly move the ball, as the Texans have averaged 6.0 yards per play this season and are 1.0 yppl better than average with Rosenfels at quarterback.
Jacksonville has allowed 5.6 yppl this season (to teams that would average 5.2 yppl against an average team) and the Jaguars gave up 6.3 yppl at home to the Texans in their 30-27 week 3 victory. Houston’s defense is 0.6 yppl worse than average while the Jaguars are 0.4 yppl worse than average on offense, so the Jags don’t have much of an edge when they have the ball. They do have an advantage in keeping the ball, however, as quarterback David Garrard is on pace to become the NFL’s all time leader in lowest career interception percentage (1.96%) once he has enough passes to qualify.
The Jaguars are projected to be +0.8 in turnover margin, but my math still favors Houston by 6½ points due to their ability to move the football.
Free Pick: Texans -3½ (-105)
© Copyright 2008. Reprinted with permission of the author.