The Houston Texans square off with the Buffalo Bills in the wild card round of the NFL postseason.
Both teams finished the 2019 regular season with a 10-6 record. Due to that, it should be expected that this will be a hard fought battle. It's one of the matchups that is absolutely any team's game.
Yes, in the playoffs anything can happen. However, let's not kid ourselves. Some games are simply a lot easier to predict. This is not one of those games.
So why exactly will Houston be the team to pull out the victory? Here are four reasons why the Texans will beat the Bills in the Wild Card round.
Home Field Advantage
Despite both having 10-6 records, Houston hosts the game; having won their division (the AFC South) they get that privilege.
This might not seem like the best reason in the world, but this is the postseason. Teams are looking for every advantage they can possible get, and between these two teams it could be huge.
Think about it, the Bills play in Buffalo. That's cold weather and snow. Meanwhile, the Texans play in Houston.
So now the Texans aren't going to be at that disadvantage with the weather. More importantly, perhaps, they have the crowd by their side.
In the regular season, crowds absolutely make a difference. They can drown out the opposing offense so the players can't hear audibles. They can also make help give their team motivation and sway the momentum.
When it comes to the playoffs, it's hard not to go for the team with home field advantage.
DeAndre Hopkins and Deshaun Watson Connection
The Bills have one of the best defenses in all of football. However, that does not mean they are perfect.
The Texans can get to Buffalo with a simple connection. And by simply, I mean deadly. Deshaun Watson has turned into one of the best and most dangerous quarterbacks in the NFL. And he has possibly the best wide receiver in the entire league, DeAndre Hopkins.
Watson finished the year completing 67.3% of his passes for 3,852 yards and 26 touchdowns. He also had 413 rushing yards and seven more touchdowns (and even one reception for six yards and another touchdown). Oh, and he did all that in 15 games.
Meanwhile, Hopkins also appeared in 15 games. The receiver had 1o4 receptions for 1,165 yards and seven touchdowns. Hopkins is a close to “unguardable” as possible. And if you stick two men on him, Will Fuller will tear you up too for the Texans.
Buffalo has silenced a lot of good offenses this year, but silencing Hopkins is a whole nother animal.
Josh Allen
Coming in to the year, there were a lot of questions surrounding Josh Allen. The Buffalo quarterback answered a lot of those in 2019 though.
That being said, not everything is figured out. First of all, while he was much improved in 2019, there's still a long way to go for Allen. The quarterback completed just 58.8% of his passes, throwing 2o touchdowns compared to nine interceptions. Despite playing in all 16 games, he also had just 3,089 passing yards.
Sure, his running is fantastic (510 rushing yards and nine touchdowns), but he also fumbled the ball 13 times.
So turnovers are still a bit of an issue for Allen, and he still has some accuracy problems. The other thing though, is he's yet to play a game in the postseason.
Postseason football is it's own beast. Can Allen respond to the pressure of an away game in January? Maybe he rises to the challenge. However, this is definitely a reason to consider the Texans might walk away with a win.
J.J. Watt
J.J. Watt is back. There really does not need to be much else said about this.
Watt appeared in eight games this season for the Texans. In that time, he had four sacks, one forced fumble and two fumble recoveries. He also had four pass deflections.
Watt is a constant presence for the Texans in the defense and disruption to the opposing offense. What he brings to the table goes far beyond the box score.
However, it's also good to remember what a healthy Watt can do in the box score. Just last season he had sixteen sacks and an absurd seven forced fumbles for the Texans.
With Watt back, this Houston defense can take a massive leap forward. If that happens, it's very easy to envision a Texans' win over the Bills in the Wild Card round.
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