NFL Week 9 begins with the Philadelphia Eagles and Houston Texans on Thursday Night Football at 8:15pm ET on Amazon Prime Video, and our NFL expert Clevta has a best bet and predictions for the game.
Clevta’s Philadelphia Eagles vs Houston Texans best bet: Eagles -14 (-110)
It always makes me nervous to lay such a huge number in the NFL, especially on the road. However, when it comes to a big favorite, Thursday night is when you would want to lay the wood. Since 2000, double-digit favorites on any day besides Thursdays during the week only cover 47% of the time. During that same period, double-digit favorites are 19-7 ATS (73%) on TNF, and they are covering by an average of over 4 points per game. If you isolate those TNF games where a team is a double-digit favorite with an above-average total (44 or more), the favorite is 11-0 ATS and covers by nearly 10 points per game. And all of this makes sense when you consider that to be laying this kind of number, there is a clear gap in talent between the two teams. On a short week with less preparation, that always puts the less talented underdog at a major disadvantage, and the Texans are clearly disadvantaged this week. Modeling large spreads are always difficult, as motivation late is not always equal, but I have this as Philly -16.
Not only are the Texans likely the worst team in the NFL but their only legitimate WR weapon, Brandin Cooks, is disgruntled and asked to be traded. The team did not end up trading him, and who knows if he will even see the field on Thursday. Either way, motivation is a major issue with Cooks. Otherwise, this is a horrible matchup for Houston, who can not stop the run. We know how great the Eagles are at running the football (2nd best in the NFL in EPA per rush), but this Texans run defense ranks 28th in EPA, 32nd in explosive runs allowed and 31st in yards before contact per rush allowed. That yards before contact allowed is significant because they have not played a difficult schedule of opposing run offenses.
Their opponent’s run offenses rank 3rd worst in the NFL, which means they are getting torched on the ground by a collectively weak set of run offenses. This Eagles run offense is by far the best they will have faced, and the OL/DL mismatch will be glaring. Why I don't mind laying this kind of number too is the fact that the Eagles can just run out the clock in the 2nd half because of this mismatch. It won't be a case of running out of time against a team that can stop it.