Houston Texans (9-5) at Kansas City Chiefs (13-1)

Early in the week, the Chiefs opened as 2.5-point home underdogs in this game, as the oddsmakers seemed to be preparing for a Patrick Mahomes absence due to the ankle injury he suffered in last week’s win over the Browns. I locked in a small bet on the money line (+120) at that point because I thought Mahomes had a chance to play, in which case we’d obviously be getting great value with the Chiefs, and, even if he didn’t play, I still thought the Chiefs had a better than 50/50 shot to win, for a number of reasons. 

Mahomes is obviously a great quarterback who would be missed, but he hasn’t played up to his usual standard this season. The Chiefs also have a good backup in Carson Wentz and good teams tend to play well with backup quarterbacks to compensate for their quarterback’s absence. The Chiefs also still have a good defense that ranks 7th in yards per play allowed and 10th in first down rate allowed, while their offense ranks just 24th in yards per play and 13th in first down rate. On top of that, the Texans are an overrated team that has not played as well as their record, with seven of their nine victories coming by eight points or fewer. The Chiefs are also overrated with a lot of close victories, but Mahomes is a big part of why they are overrated and, without him, I don’t think they would be overrated.

However, it looks like Mahomes is going to play in this game after all and this line has shifted significantly to compensate, moving six points all the way to Kansas City -3.5. I don’t like the Chiefs nearly that much at that number, as that’s a huge line movement for one player, especially one that will likely be playing at less than 100%. My calculated line with Mahomes in the lineup is Kansas City -5, even before factoring in that he could be significantly limited by injury or suffer a setback and have to come out of the game. That line of -5 isn’t actually that different from -3.5, as games are rarely decided by 4 or 5 points. With that in mind, I actually like the Texans for pick ‘em purposes, albeit for a no confidence pick.

Kansas City Chiefs 20 Houston Texans 17

Pick against the spread: Houston +3.5

Confidence: None