Playoff Predictions: AFC Divisional Round Houston Texans At Baltimore Ravens

Of all the games in this week's upcoming Divisional Round, the matchup between the Texans and the Ravens is the one that I don't have a really great feel for. Specifically I don't have a great feel for the Ravens because, while they've look great many times this year, they have had some pretty inexplicable losses including to Tennessee and Jacksonville that were major head-scratchers. Baltimore and Houston played all the way back in Week 6 where the Ravens took care of business 29-14 limiting QB Matt Schaub and holding Pro Bowl RB Arian Foster to under 50 yards rushing. Houston comes into this game down to their third-string rookie T.J. Yates at QB but will have WR Andre Johnson in the lineup who was missing in the Week 6 contest.

Baltimore is favored by more than a touchdown in this game (-7.5) and on paper it looks like the Ravens should easily be the superior team playing at home. Personally though I see this game playing out much closer than the spread and conventional wisdom would dictate. The Texans, both for better and for worse, are a much different team at this point than they were the last time they played in Baltimore. After losing their first two QBs and playing without Johnson for much of the season many analysts and fans alike felt they would fizzle out. However Yates has played as well as anyone could expect by first helping his team finish out the regular season by winning their first ever AFC South Division title and then earning the franchise's first ever playoff victory last week against Cincinnati. With last week's 31-10 win at home Yates became the first rookie QB drafted in the 5th round or later to win a playoff game.

Nevertheless this game is going to come down to the defenses. Baltimore has been defined by their defense ever since the 2000 season when they carried the team their first Super Bowl under the leadership of future HOF LB Ray Lewis. Houston on the other hand did not become a defensive power until this season with the addition of Defensive Coordinator Wade Phillips. Phillips has crafted this team into one of the best units in the NFL despite losing Pro Bowler Mario Williams for the season early in the year. It was the Texans' defense that earned the victory last week and I believe that defense is going to step up big again this weekend. When Schaub went down earlier this year the defense came together as a unit knowing it was up to them to carry the franchise for the rest of the season. They are lead by LB Brian Cushing who is an absolute nut (see video below) and I think this team is hot. The Texans run defense was suffocating last week holding the Bengals to only 70 yards on the ground and 1,000 yard rusher Cedric Benson to only 14 yards on 7 carries. I think the Texans are going to focus on taking away Baltimore's biggest threat RB Ray Rice and force QB Joe Flacco to beat their much improved secondary. The Ravens have enjoyed success ever since they made Flacco their starter from day 1 as a rookie in 2008 and while he has generally been successful in both the regular season and the postseason I think he can be very inconsistent when defenses put the onus on him to win the game. This is going to be a low-scoring affair and I think the Texans are riding a big wave of momentum that will carry them. Both running games are going to have trouble in this game and I think the outcome will be determined by only a handful of plays in the passing game. Here I give the advantage to Houston and Yates' ability to get the deep ball to WR Andre Johnson. Look for this game be close in the 4th with a score somewhere in the area of 14-14 before either a Flacco turnover or a Johnson 60-yd pass play shifts the momentum in favor of the Texans.

Final Score: Texans 23 - Ravens 17