New England at Houston

We all know Houston can pull off the shocker. This year they beat Miami as a 14 point underdog, Jacksonville as a 3 point dog, Carolina as a 6.5 point dog and, last week, Buffalo as a 7 point underdog. Then in other games they get killed. Which team will show up on Sunday? The upset-in’ kind, of course! New England’s off a big emotional, nationally-televised win against Dallas. The prognosticators now have New England as a front-runner for the Super Bowl. And why not? They’ve won six straight games. What’s next? They get to travel to Texas to play a losing team they are supposed to easily beat. As is the theme for my picks this week, good teams sometimes lose when they shouldn’t. New England’s offense has scored 20+ points in just one game out of the last five (against Denver). They needed a last-minute touchdown to win that game. Houston’s four wins have come against teams that bear a striking resemblance to the Patriots (good defense/mediocre offense). Houston’s motivation in this one is two-fold. They are aching to win back-to-back games for the first time in their history and they are still in the wild-card race. New England, on the other hand, will find it extremely difficult not to relax after six hard-fought wins. The Patriots are 8-0-1 against the spread in their last nine. I see that streak ending on Sunday.