Thursday night football at its finest tonight with this AFC South battle. Houston is much improved over last year, as expected, but Indianapolis is flying high on offense. Andrew Luck is coming into his own as a QB in the NFL, and keeps putting up big numbers. This will be his biggest test of the season so far as he is traveling on a short week, and going up against a tough Houston defense at home.
Houston doesn't have very high rankings in defense yards allowed per game or passing yards allowed, but they haven't kept points off the board, bending but never breaking. They have a tendency to stay calm, and happy to keep the games close and hope to pull them out in the end. They've been a rushing team this year behind Arian Foster, and Deandre Hopkins has become a legit threat on the outside in his 2nd year. The biggest reason for the turnaround in 2014 for Houston has been because of the run game. They are averaging almost 32 rushing attempts per game, allowing them to control the clock and the flow of the game. Also, they aren't playing from behind as much, and aren't forced to air it out in hopes of getting back in games, but I didn't watch a lot of Houston last year so maybe they fell behind because they were throwing the ball and not completing passes.
Indianapolis defense hasn't faced much rushing this year as the offense has gotten out and put points up on the board and forced other teams to throw to try to get back in the game quickly. The colts defense is giving up nearly 5 yards per carry as they are still allowing 102 ypg on the ground on only 22 attempts. That's not good against a team that is rushing the ball 32 times a game and averaging 127 yards per game. Indianapolis has controlled the ball in it's first 5 games averaging nearly 75 plays per game, which is 18 more per game than their opponents. Houston is running a lot less plays on offense, averaging almost 60 plays per game while facing 64 plays per game. I don't believe the play differential will be as large in this game as in prior Colts games.
Final thought on this game is turnovers. So far this year Indianapolis has 3 fumbles and 6 interceptions on offense and 4 fumble recoveries and 6 interceptions on defense leaving them with a -1 turnover ratio. Houston has only fumbled the ball twice while recovery 7 and has thrown 6 interceptions while picking off 5 leaving them with +4 in the turnover department.
As long as Houston keeps control of the game and ball they will keep this game close and possibly pull off the upset. Take the home team and the points in this one.
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