The Houston Texans dominated the Los Angeles Chargers in the Wild Card Round, forcing Justin Herbert into four interceptions. For context, he had thrown three during the entirety of the 2024 NFL regular season. The pass rush duo of Danielle Hunter and Will Anderson Jr. are elite, and the secondary plays great as well.
The Kansas City Chiefs haven’t played their starters since Week 17 of the regular season. They rested them against the Denver Broncos in Week 18 and had a bye week in the first round. This will either mean they are going to come out fresh and ready to go or that they could have lost some of the groove and momentum they had before. Knowing Andy Reid is the coach makes me confident it will be the former over the latter.
Houston Texans vs. Kansas City Chiefs Betting Lines, Odds, Start Time, and More
- Spread
Chiefs -8.5 - Moneyline
Chiefs (-455); Texans (+350) - Over/Under
41.5 total points - Game Time
4:30 p.m ET - Location
Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, Mo.
Texans vs. Chiefs Preview and Prediction
According to TruMedia, the Chiefs rank sixth in EPA (expected points added) when under pressure. This will be of utmost importance in a game where the offensive tackles are clearly at a disadvantage against Hunter and Anderson. Among 179 defenders with over 200 pass-rushing snaps, Anderson ranks 14th and Hunter 28th in pressure rate.
Out of 190 linemen with over 200 pass-blocking snaps, Chiefs O-linemen Jawaan Taylor ranks 116th, Wanya Morris 176th, and D.J. Humphries would rank dead last if he qualified. Luckily for the Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes’ magic on top of moving Joe Thuney to left tackle seems like an appropriate fix.
In the first matchup between the two in Week 16, Mahomes was pressured on 37.8% of his dropbacks (good for eighth-worst in the league), but it only resulted in one sack (2.4% sack rate). That is utterly absurd. Mahomes hasn’t been quite at the level that Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson have this season, but his career level of sack avoidance is top-five all-time.
Mahomes was 9-of-13 for 103 yards, a touchdown, and nine first downs when pressured against Houston in Week 16. He also scrambled three times for 35 yards, which is something that enables him to defeat great pass rushes consistently. The only team this season to average a higher scramble EPA per play than the Chiefs is the Los Angeles Rams — who have only scrambled on four plays this season.
Along with Mahomes’ skills under pressure is his ability on third downs. The Chiefs jump from the 10th-ranked team in EPA to the fourth-ranked team in EPA on third downs. Against the Texans, the Chiefs were 7-of-10 for 92 yards with an additional first down picked up from a 13-yard Mahomes scramble. Despite this supposedly being a down year for Mahomes, he still ranked 10th in the NFL according to PFN’s QB+ metric.
The last thing to address is the potential for the Chiefs to come out flat with how much time off they have had. Over the past 20 seasons, nine teams have rested their starting quarterback for the entirety of their regular-season finale before enjoying a Wild Card Round bye, according to PFN Stats and Insights. Most of these teams also rested several other key starters, similar to the Chiefs.
These nine teams posted a 5-4 record in the Divisional Round, which is significantly lower than the overall win percentage of home teams in the Divisional Round during that span (0.658 to 0.556). Luckily, things have been trending in the opposite direction with the last three teams to follow this strategy all winning. This includes the Chiefs themselves who have proven not to be affected by “rust.”
They did it in 2020 and still proceeded to win. They also had a bye week in 2022 and proceeded to score on each of their first three possessions while only allowing 5.1 yards per play in the first half of their Divisional Round game. The Chiefs also rank 15th in EPA on scripted plays, showing that this hasn’t been one of their strong suits to begin with.
For Houston’s offense, the name of the game has been finding success on early downs. Just six of their 18 games have seen an above-average (by EPA) rank on first and second downs. Every single one of those games resulted in a win — that means they went 4-7 in the other games. If you can force the Texans offense into uncomfortable third-down situations, you typically find success.
The Chiefs rank 15th in defensive EPA on first and second downs this season. Luckily for Kansas City, Houston needed a potent rushing offense to have this success on early downs. In those six games, the Texans averaged 5.5 yards per rush with 33 first downs and eight touchdowns on 163 rushes. That’s good for a first down on 20.3% of runs and a touchdown on 4.9% of rushes.
On first and second downs in the other 11 games, they were held to just 3.4 yards per rush, a first down on 15.35% of rushes, and a touchdown on just 2.63% of rushes. The Chiefs rank seventh in yards per rush allowed but third in yards per rush allowed on first and second downs.
Overall, I think the Chiefs have a clear advantage. After all, they are the No. 1 seed and two-time reigning champs for a reason. This article doesn’t even discuss the fact that playoff Mahomes is even greater than in the regular season. Among quarterbacks with over 300 passing attempts in the playoffs, Mahomes ranks second in EPA per drop back behind only Matthew Stafford by a razor-thin margin.
When you add on the fact that Steve Spagnuolo is a madman defensive coordinator who turns up the heat even more so in the playoffs, things get tricky for the opposition. In the image below, you can see the Chiefs have by far the most varied defensive coverages this year, leading my unpredictability rankings by a longshot.
This isn’t to say that varying coverages always work, of course. There are plenty of defenses that find success in a certain coverage and stay in it as well as those that do too much and don’t have the players to execute. Despite not having a world-beating defense this season, they are very competitive, and I am confident they will turn this up a notch in the playoffs.
While the Chiefs are clearly the better team, 8.5 points is a tall task, especially against a playoff team with a tough defense. In the four games where the Chiefs were favored by more than 8.5 points, they went 0-4 ATS. Since 2018, this record has improved to 2-1 when looking at playoff games. Let’s play it down a tad.
My pick: Chiefs -6.5 (-161)
