Houston at Jacksonville

With Matt Schaub at QB, Houston has gotten a lot of people thinking they have turned the corner. To some extent they have. This is a much better team than before. But how much better? In the preseason, we predicted Jacksonville would win 10+ games this year. They started out with an ugly home loss. The Jags were beaten badly at the line of scrimmage vs. Tennessee in that game, but managed to hang in, allowing just 13 points. After three straight wins, they are right back to where they were last year. But unlike last year, they are now doing it on the road as well as at home. They went into Kansas City and kept a goose egg on the scoreboard for the Chiefs for 59 minutes and 59 seconds. The Chiefs could only muster 10 yards rushing. The Jags were in Denver the week before and held a Broncos team that runs on everyone to just 47 yards. The week before that, they held Atlanta to 82 yards and 7 points at home. Yeah, this defense is good. Now they come home, where they have allowed just 108 points in 10 games with 41 of those allowed to the two most potent offenses in football (Indianapolis and New England). In the other eight games they gave up just 67 points (6.7 per game)! Houston will come in after not being able to find the endzone last week vs. a Miami team that is ranked 24th defensively. Houston may again be without two of their most potent offensive weapons in Ahman Green and Andre Johnson. Let's face it, Ron Dayne's 2.9 ypc is not getting it done. Against Miami (worst in the league vs. the run), Dayne could manage just 30 yards on 16 carries. Jacksonville will be teeing off on Schaub and that could turn this one ugly in a hurry. Under Jack Del Rio, the Jags are 22-11 ATS following a road game. Our computer matchup for this game predicts a 9-point win for the Jags. We agree that it will be a TD or higher.