NFL nut Kyle Robins (@AhhYeahKyleYeah) shares his expert opinion on the best bets available from Monday Night Football as the Tennessee Titans travel to the Houston Texans.
Tennessee Titans @ Houston Texans | Tuesday 27th November 2018, 01:15 | Sky Sports
An AFC South divisional match-up concludes Week 12, as the Tennessee Titans head to Houston to take on the Texans.
The main headline heading into this contest has been surrounding the health of Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota. After not holding an injury designation however, he’s expected to be full-go come Monday night, in what is a pivotal game for both teams in this conference.
Houston currently holds a two-game lead over Tennessee, and a win for the Texans would all but secure the division, but the Colts might think otherwise.
Sitting at 5-5, the Titans have been somewhat inconsistent this year. One week they’re dismantling the Patriots, the next they’re getting blown out by the Colts. Come Monday night, their defence will have to hold the high-powered Texans offense within a reasonable points margin to have a chance of coming away with the W.
Now do bear in mind, the Tians beat this Texans team under the guidance of Blaine Gabbert back in Week 2, but Houston are a very different animal nowadays, having turned a 0-3 start into a 7-3 record since.
Taking a points approach
That game finished 20-17 and I expect a similar scoreline this time around, all be it a reverse in the match winner. Whilst the Titans have seen their last three games go over the 40+ point mark, they went under that line for the three outings before that.
So it’s fair to say you don’t quite know what you’re going to get defensively from the Titans team.
The return of Mariota will certainly be a boost on the offensive side of the ball. But if their defence gives up points as easy as they did to Andrew Luck last week, this game could go well over the 41.5 line.
I will be aiming a little higher than that however, taking the 27/20 with Coral for Over 44.5 Points.
Player markets
Switching towards player markets, the most obvious theory for most would be to lean towards the spine of this Houston offense in either Deshaun Watson or Deandre Hopkins, and that’s exactly what I’ll be doing.
During their defeat to the Titans earlier this season, these two absolutely tore up the stat sheet, all be it in vain. Watson threw for 310 yards and two TDs, whilst Hopkins shredded Tennessee’s secondary to the tune of 110 yards and a touchdown, and I fully expect him to do the same again here.
Take Hopkins at evens with Paddy Power to get into the endzone for the ninth time.
Flipping over to the Tennessee attack, my area of focus revolves fully around quarterback Mariota. While question marks will always remain around his health, especially coming into this encounter, he still might provide us with an angle of attack.
Whilst Mariota missed the first encounter with Houston and we can’t predict as much from him as we can from other players, he has certainly increased his performance levels in recent weeks. He’s performed brilliantly in wins over the Patriots and Cowboys, accumulating four touchdowns and no turnovers, and hopefully, for our sake, he can maintain those levels through this game.
His line looks reasonably low all things considered, currently being set at 210.5. Given how I expect this game to play out, I think it could certainty be one the Titans will be playing catch-up, in turn, leading towards more usage for Mariota through the air.
Having comfortably cleared that line in three of his past four performances, I like the 5/6 with Sky Bet for Mariota to do so again.
Best Bets
Tennessee Titans @ Houston Texans – Over 44.5 Points (27/20 Coral)
Tennessee Titans @ Houston Texans – Deandre Hopkins to score a touchdown at anytime (1/1 Paddy Power)
Tennessee Titans @ Houston Texans – Marcus Mariota Over 210.5 Passing Yards (5/6 SkyBet)
