The NFL Playoff is onto the Divisional Round and there is a great matchup between the Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs. Here is a full preview of the matchup and the best bet to make at DraftKings Sportsbook.
After their first-round bye, the Chiefs will host the Texans in Kansas City on Saturday afternoon of the Divisional Round. The Texans struggled down the stretch in the regular season but picked up a convincing win over the Chargers in the Wild Card Round. These teams faced each other once in the regular season also in Kansas City, and the Chiefs won 27-19. The Texans will need to play a nearly flawless game to defeat the Chiefs, but they certainly have a chance to win if they play like they did last week.
The Chiefs are +350 to win the Super Bowl at DraftKings Sportsbook, the second-best odds in the field, behind only the Lions. The Chiefs have won back-to-back Super Bowls and have made four of the past five Super Bowls. There is nobody more intimidating to face in the postseason than Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid. Patrick Mahomes has only lost twice at home in the postseason, and both times it was in the AFC Championship Game. Both losses came in overtime, one to Tom Brady and the Patriots, and one to Joe Burrow and the Bengals. The Chiefs went 15-2 in the regular season, with that last loss coming in Week 18 when they were resting their starters. They haven’t been convincing at times this season, but they always found ways to win games which is all that matters in the postseason.
The Texans are +5500 to win the Super Bowl, which is the longest odds of any team in the field. Houston had high expectations coming into this season after C.J. Stroud won the division and a playoff game in his rookie year. The team added Stefon Diggs and Joe Mixon in the offseason to try to take their offense to the next level. However, the Texans have struggled with injuries all season. Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell are both out for the season at wide receiver, but Nico Collins is still one of the best receivers in the league. Stroud and Collins will need to pull off some big plays through the air if they want to pull off this upset.
On DraftKings Sportsbook, the Chiefs are 7.5-point favorites and the total is set at 42.5. Here is my favorite prop bet for the game and my final score prediction.
Prop Bet: Nico Collins Longest Reception o26.5 Yards (-115)
Nico Collins missed some time with injuries this season. He has been sensational when he’s been on the field. Collins finished fourth in the NFL in receiving yards per game and was the second-leading receiver of Wild Card Weekend. Collins had seven catches for 122 yards and a touchdown in the Wild Card matchup against the Chargers. He will need to replicate that performance if the Texans want to take down the Chiefs. The Texans’ coaching staff and C.J. Stroud are well aware that they will need to be aggressive to take down the Chiefs on the road. There should be a few deep shots to Collins in this game, and he should haul in at least one of them to hit his longest reception prop of 26.5 yards.
Excluding the season finale against the Titans, where Collins only played the first quarter, Collins has cleared this longest reception number in 10 of 12 games this season. That includes the Wild Card Round matchup against the Chargers where Collins hauled in a 41-yard reception and the regular season matchup in Kansas City where Collins had a 30-yard reception. Collins had a respectable seven catches for 60 yards in that game, but Tank Dell was actually the team’s leading receiver. With no Dell on the field, there should only be more targets for Collins this time around, only increasing the odds of him breaking a big one. There are two game scripts where this bet can win. Either the Texans come out firing and hang with the Chiefs from the jump, or the Chiefs jump out to an early lead and the Texans are forced to be aggressive to get back into the game. In either scenario, the Texans should have to hit some downfield shots to Nico Collins and push him over his longest reception prop.
Score Prediction
The Chiefs and Texans played a tight game earlier this season. The Chiefs ended up winning by eight points, but Houston was in the game the whole way and the Chiefs just executed two great drives down the stretch to get points on the board and then run the clock out. The Texans are also playing with a lot of confidence at the moment. During the final couple of weeks of the regular season, the Texans were sleepwalking to the postseason and were playing bad football, including that Chiefs game. That is why DeMeco Ryans decided to start C.J. Stroud and the rest of the offense in Week 18 against the Titans, despite the game having no impact on their playoff seeding. The offense needed to find a rhythm. Stroud executed a perfect drive and threw a touchdown pass to Nico Collins. Then he hit the bench for the rest of the game.
Stroud, Collins, Mixon, and others discussed how much that one drive helped them take some momentum and confidence into the postseason. That confidence shone through in their destruction of the Chargers. After a slow start offensively, Stroud really found his rhythm and the Texans dominated on both sides of the ball. They should have supreme confidence that they can come into Kansas City and compete on both sides of the ball. The Chiefs had an incredible season, but they struggled to put teams away all year. Of their 15 wins, only four came by multiple scores. They do know how to win games with such an experienced team and coaching staff, and that is important. However, there was also a large degree of luck to a lot of those results. The Broncos had a game-winning field goal blocked, several key penalties at the end of games went the Chiefs’ way, and the Raiders fumbled in the final seconds while in game-winning field goal range.
Part of the reason the Chiefs played so many close games is the lack of offensive explosivity they have. Other top teams like Detroit, Buffalo and Baltimore all averaged over 30 PPG. Meanwhile, the Chiefs only scored 30 points in regulation once the entire season. The Chiefs finished the regular season 12th in the league in net EPA/play. That just does not correlate with their record. They are not elite on either side of the ball, and they rely on things breaking their way and Mahomes saving the day at the end of the game.
The Texans’ defense is one of the most underrated units in the NFL. Including the postseason, they rank 4th in the NFL in defensive EPA/play. The Chiefs’ defense ranks 15th by the same metrics. The Chiefs have an experienced well-coached defense with a couple of elite players, but they are not an elite unit as a whole. The Texans should be able to compete in this game the whole way with a confident C.J. Stroud and a ferocious defense. Ultimately, I am picking the Chiefs to find a way to win at home once again. I expect the Chiefs to lose to the winner of the Ravens-Bills matchup, but Kansas City should survive against Houston thanks to one or two great plays from Patrick Mahomes. However, the Texans should be able to keep it within a touchdown and cover the spread.
