Detroit Lions at Houston Texans Point Spread Pick

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Detroit rallied late for a 20-17 victory over Washington last Sunday. Houston remained winless on the road with a lopsided 27-9 loss to Denver on Monday night.
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The Lions rode the arm of QB Matthew Stafford to the win last week as he has clearly been their best offensive player this season. He has a 15-4 TD/INT ratio in 2016, the best of his career at this point of the season. However, he faces a stern test this week as the Texans allow only 184.7 passing yards per game and can still get after the QB despite the loss of DE J.J. Watt (IR). Despite his success, Stafford has been sacked 18 times so far this year and will have to get rid of the ball quickly with this pass rush. Houston has been very vulnerable on the ground (135.4 ypg) but the Lions just don’t have a legitimate running threat to take advantage. They signed RB Justin Forsett before last week’s contest and he responded with 38 yards on 13 carries (2.9 ypc). I see Houston DC Romeo Crennel designing a package to contain the run while paying close attention to Stafford and the passing game.
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Texans QB Brock Osweiler was not impressive in his return to Denver and has been very mediocre on the year. Despite this, I see him having some success this week. Detroit CB Darius Slay left last week’s matchup with the Redskins with a hamstring injury and is questionable this week. He joins OLB DeAndre Levy, DE Haloti Ngata and DE Ezekiel Ansah who are dealing with injuries. The Lions also traded LB Kyle Van Noy, a 6-game starter in 2016 to the Patriots earlier this week. The Lions have allowed 273 passing yards per game with Slay in the lineup and I see Osweiler taking advantage of this depleted defense. He has been sacked 13 times on the year but should have time to throw with all of the injuries on the Detroit defense. WRs DeAndre Hopkins and rookie Will Fuller have the talent to exploit this weakened secondary. RB Lamar Miller (4.3 ypc) will get a lot of work against a defense dealing with so many injuries in the front seven. While the Lions are better at run defense (112 ypg) they do yield 4.7 ypc.
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Public Money Consensus<br />
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It appears that this match up between the Lions and the Texans is garnering a little more action on Detroit with 61% believing that the Lions can win this one outright. The over/under bettors are laying a bit more coin on the under in this week 9 NFL game with 54%.
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