Indianapolis @ HOUSTON
Indianapolis +252 over HOUSTON

BEST LINES: Pinnacle +252 Bet365 +250 SportsInteraction +250 5DIMES +250

Posted Friday at 2:30 PM EST.

1:00 PM EST. The Colts shut down the franchise this week when they placed quarterback Andrew Luck on injured reserve, essentially ending his season before it ever started. The market may see this move as Indy giving up or quitting on the campaign but in reality, this is the best thing to happen to the Colts and it’s not like it was surprise to anyone in their locker room. Chuck Pagano has very likely informed them many times already this year that Luck wasn’t going to play. Aside from that, the players and coaches love Luck’s replacement. Jacoby Brissett, who the Colts picked up right before the season, is criminally underrated. While he doesn’t have the pedigree of some pivots, what he does have is some very valuable seasoning under Bill Belichick and Tom Brady and he would be a franchise QB in a lot of places.

Right on the heels of the Luck news, the Texans, not to be outdone, announced that rookie quarterback Deshaun Watson tore his ACL in practice and is done for the rest of the season, effectively ending any chance the Texans had to make the playoffs. With such a devastating injury, one has to wonder what the mindset will be in the Texans locker room, as they now must put the ball back into the hands of Tom Savage, who was so bad in the opener he was benched permanently at halftime in the very first game of the year. The Texans are a mess from the top of the organization down after they traded one of the best offensive linemen in the league in Duane Brown to the Seahawks. Brown was an early season holdout and in his absence, Tom Savage was sacked six times in just 31 snaps. One of the reported reasons the Texans were comfortable in trading the guy tasked to protect their new star QB was because of Watson’s ability to run. It’s a funny world ain’t it? The real reason, however, is that Texans owner, Robert C. McNair, didn’t like the outspoken Brown and his political views so he shipped him out. Brown is the OL that protects the QB’s blindside and he’s one of only a handful in the game that is outstanding at it. Shipping him out was a political statement by the owner and not a football move. Last week, before its game against Seattle, McNair went on to say that the “Inmates are running the Prison”, which prompted 30 players on the Texans side to take a knee to protest owner McNair’s comments of calling them “inmates in a prison”. The cliché or phrase is “The inmates have taken over the asylum” which is quite different than convicted felons in a prison. The players were furious. 

With the owner unable to keep his pie-hole shut and being perceived as a racist, with their offense officially gutted along with a defense also decimated by injuries and suspension, the remaining Texans players can’t have much left in the way of spirit. To say this has been a bad week for the Houston Texans is an understatement. The line on this game dropped 6½ points when Watson’s injury was announced. That is huge, but it’s not unjustified. Honestly, the downgrade from Watson/Brown to Savage and whoever suits up at left tackle is much bigger. Tom Savage can’t be favored over anybody at this point even the lowly Colts on his home turf. While both of these teams lost their star QB’s for the season, the Colts mindset is much different. They are now free to play with house money the rest of the way and even though they keep losing, they show up and play hard every single week. We now get the superior QB on a team with a great mindset that always shows up and plays hard against a team whose season went from Super Bowl contention to dumpster fire in the span of two days. The Texans likely don’t show up here and are ripe to get beat. Take the points if you like but the Colts taking back better than 2½-1 in a game they might have a better than 50% chance of winning is our bet.

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Our Pick

Indianapolis +252 (Risking 2 units - To Win: 5.04)