Jacksonville at Houston

Tonight the Houston Texans host a Monday Night Football game for the first time since 1994. Both of these teams have struggled to identical 4-7 records, and their playoff fate has for all intents and purposes been sealed - neither will be playing in January. Both of these teams have average offenses. Jacksonville's defense is solid while Houston's is not. But with two teams that collectively average 43 points per game, this total is too high. Houston will be the more "pumped" team here given that this is their first MNF home appearance in 14 years. Their defense will play better than usual. The Texans have struggled with Sage Rosenfels under center. He has already thrown nine interceptions and fumbled four times. So, last week the Texans put the ball on the ground last 36 times and lo and behold - the Texans won. I think they go with a similar game plan tonight, especially considering that Jacksonville ranks 18th vs. the run. I expect Steve Slayton and Ahman Green to get a lot of work in this one. The Jaguars are faced with a similar dilemna, as their defense has suffered through the loss of Marcus Stroud. They would like to keep their offense on the field as much as possible and have a tandem of running backs that should find some room on the 23th ranked rushing offense of the Texans. Games featuring two bad teams with winning percentages of .400 or worse in the second half of the season have played UNDER 61% of the time since 1983 (including 1-0 so far this year). The game plan for both teams here will be run-run-run, and I expect the single biggest threat to an OVER here (Houston's defense) will be mitigated by an emotionally high effort.