NFL: Coin Toss – Houston with heavy hearts to new record?

Week 12 concludes with the Monday Night game in Texas, where the Houston Texans will play their first game after the death of team owner Bob McNair and continue their winning streak with heavy hearts. Meanwhile the Tennessee Titans are trying to recover from a slip after good performances against top teams. The SPOX Coin Toss discusses who has the upper hand. The game can be seen live on DAZN in the night from 2.15 a.m. on Tuesday to Tuesday!

mySPOX-User airjo: For the first time since the introduction of Coin Toss the Texans have a Monday Night Game at home. And for the first time, they are also the bookmakers’ favorite. Nevertheless, this game will be a great challenge so shortly after the death of Bob McNair. It is thanks to McNair that football has been played in Houston again for 16 years now, after the Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee in 1996 and became the Titans a short time later.

How will the loss of McNair affect the team? Of course, no one can know beforehand how such external influences affect a team, see Hurricane Harvey last year. I’m hoping that the team will play for him and can draw additional motivation from it.

For my look at the game I mainly consulted the DVOA rating of Football Outsiders this time. In this ranking the Texans are ranked 14th in the league comparison, the Titans only rank 24th.

The Texans have all won the past seven games – eight wins in a row would be a new franchise record – and are on a playoff course. Anyone who has seen the Texans games in recent weeks may still get the impression that the offense is being held back by play calling and would actually be capable of much more. Obviously Head Coach Bill O’Brien pursues a very conservative, run-heavy game approach to protect Deshaun Watson’s health.

In fact, Watson has been taking far fewer hits in recent weeks. The side effect are many tight games including some dramatic wins at the last second. I hope O’Brien will give Watson more freedom this time, at the latest by the second half, like against Miami, to decide the game early against a weak Titans Pass defence. The Texans always have the fire power.

New commitment Demaryius Thomas and rookie Keke Coutee attract enough attention to create DeAndre Hopkins’ space. The Titans are also the worst team against the opposing number one receiver. A weakness that Watson and Hopkins should mercilessly exploit.

Without changing the gameplan, however, we will also see a tight game against Tennessee again.

Fortunately, the Texans defense brings the tight games quite sovereign over time. As number 3 according to DVOA this unit dominates the run game. The passport defence is constantly improving and with Linebacker Zach Cunningham and Slot-Corner Aaron Colvin two important building blocks are returned, which should make it extremely difficult for the Titans to move the ball.

Since the Texans are all in all the better team and also incredibly strong at home, I guess a 24:16 for the Texans.

Marcus Blumberg (SPOX): On closer inspection, the discrepancy in DVOA mentioned above is not even that serious. In terms of offense DVOA, Houston’s score is only just under four percent better, while – unsurprisingly – their defensive score makes the difference at almost 14 percent. When it comes to special teams, both are almost on a par.

And special teams were also the reason why the Titans won this year’s first duel with 20:17 at the beginning of the season. A fake punt-touchdown – as well as a TD by Derrick Henry from the Wildcat formation – overcame the Texans.

Since then Houston has improved a lot, but at that time the Titans even lacked Marcus Mariota, who is now available again despite problems with the hand. And it could also be the key to Tennessee on Monday night.

If you believe football outsiders, then Mariota is the better quarterback this year compared to Watson! The difference may be only two percent with the DVOA, but the fact alone remains quite remarkable, especially as Watson certainly has the overall better receivers.

Plus, Henry is a bigger gun in the backfield than anything Houston has to offer there. Both together must reach top form if they want to stand up to the Texans.

What also speaks for the Titans are the past few games. If one forgets the slip in Indy for the moment, then the Titans with the cowboys and patriots have each beaten playoff candidates with at least two touchdowns difference.

The Texans, on the other hand, recently trembled against Denver and Washington to win each with two points difference. That counts, too, but it is not a trend that appears to be extremely stable. And after seven victories in a row, the probability of stumbling in this league is not low.