Gambling Matchup Week 5 – Oakland Raiders vs Houston Texans
Houston quarterback Matt Schuab will be going into Sunday’s game against the Oakland Raiders (2-2) without star wide receiver Andre Johnson. This development is a real test for the Texans (3-1) who have been having a great season that’s rested largely on Johnson’s shoulders.
Oakland vs Houston
Venue/Stadium: Reliant Stadium, Houston, Texas
Time/Date: 1:00 PM ET, Sunday, October 9, 2011
NFL Odds From: 5 Dimes
Spread (ATS): Texans -8
Over/Under: 48.5
Johnson, who injured his hamstring in last week’s 17-10 victory over the Steelers has been Schuab’s go to guy for big yardage plays all the time, but especially against the Raiders. Already this year, Johnson has been targeted for 35 of Schuab’s 110 pass attempts. That means there’s going to be some major adjustments made to the Texans’ game plans.
Fortunately, for Houston, they’ve always had pretty good luck running the ball against Oakland. They’ve averaged 153 yards on the ground in their past five meetings with the Raiders while winning four of those games. Still, the loss of a receiver as good as Johnson is bound to be noticed. That’s why we’ll probably see a fair amount of running from Arian Foster, who’s just returned to the lineup after a hamstring injury and ran for over 100 yards and a touchdown last week against Pittsburgh.
If you’re going to rely on your ground game, the Raiders are the team you’ll want to be playing. Their defense is currently ranked 29th against the run and gave up 400 running yards against both Buffalo and New England. When the two teams met last season, Houston ran up almost 250 yards against a big Oakland defense that just couldn’t keep pace. Unless they can slow down the Texans running game, it could be a long afternoon for Oakland. [soliloquy id=”82219″]
Offensively, things look a little better for the Raiders.
Despite what the 31-19 loss against the Patriots would indicate, Raiders quarterback Jason Campbell actually had a pretty good game last week. As a team they put up almost 500 offensive yards in that outing, but were crippled by two critical Campbell interceptions that changed the course of the game. The good news is that those two picks were only the second and third ones he’s thrown all season. If Campbell hopes to knock off the Texans, he’d better hope that was one game aberration.
Oakland has looked a lot better this year than they have in seasons past and a lot of that success can be credited to new head coach and long time offensive coordinator Hue Jackson. Jackson seems adept at handling the dysfunction and general weirdness that always seems to surround the Raiders organization.
On the other side of the field, Texans’ head coach Gary Kubiak is no stranger to the Raiders. After eleven seasons as offensive coordinator in Denver, he’s an experienced Raider opponent who knows what to expect from the boys in black.
Provided they get their defensive act together, the Raiders have a good chance at shutting Houston down. But if they play like they have against other high powered offensive units, look for Texas to put up lots of yards on the ground and lots of points on the scoreboard.
Both the Raiders and the Texans are currently 3-1 ATS.
Matt’s Prediction: Houston 28-21
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