NFL: TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT
Five points! The Houston Texans only need to stay within five points of the Tennessee Titans and I would’ve hit paydirt for the third week in a row.
It shouldn’t have been hard, but Houston coach Gary Kubiak decided to make things extremely difficult for his team and extremely frustrating as I watched the game on Sunday.
Four times the Houston Texans went for it on fourth down in the second half of last Sunday’s game. Two of those times, were early in the half with the Texans in the red zone trailing 24-12. Tell me Kubiak, what’s the rush? Kick the two field goals, make it a 24-18 game and then you would’ve had a chance to win the contest on the final drive of the game.
Instead, the Texans spent the rest of the fourth quarter pressing the issue because they were down two scores when they could’ve been within a touchdown. Chasing the points didn’t help, and because of that, the offense was panicked when they got the ball with 2:30 remaining.
That left quarterback Matt Schaub to force the issue, which resulted in an interception returned for a TD in the final minute.
Houston should have been driving for the win in the final minute of the game, not trying to make up two scores and that killed my buzz. There goes my streak, and money; all because of some stupid game management decisions by Kubiak.
Now, I am 2-1 with my Pick of the Week this season. More importantly, it drops my pick to 15 hits in the last 19 NFL regular season weeks with one push.
I thought about giving the Texans another chance this week as seven-point dogs in Jacksonville but then I saw the Titans were three-point favorites at home to Minnesota. Tennessee is getting all kinds of love from Sportsbook.com bettors this week.
So far, 85% of members are backing the Titans who are a surprising 3-0 straight up and against the spread (ATS). It’s a great start for Tennessee, whose defense has made scoring extremely difficult by allowing just 30 points in three games.
I’m impressed, I really am… but do you really expect me to believe that Tennessee is going to start the season 4-0? The 3-0 start is good, but I’m not buying the 4-0 start.
Minnesota has a good defense too and they will shut down the one area that Tennessee has been successful, the run game. The Titans average 157.3 yards per game on the ground, compared to 158.3 in the air.
The Titans will rely on quarterback Kerry Collins to get the job done this week and that isn’t happening. While Houston failed to bring down the quarterback last week, Minnesota sacked Carolina’s Jake Delhomme five times last week and will pressure Collins, sack him and force several turnovers.
Yes, I am putting my money behind a Gus Frerotte-led team this week. But it’s the Minnesota defense and running back Adrian Peterson that will take over this game.
