Texans at Patriots
Texans meet the Patriots in Foxborough, MA with weather not expected to be a factor.
In last week's piece on Texans-Bengals we suggested Texans would revert to their mid/early season
play calling style and run the ball more. They did with 39 rushes. They need to keep it up in this game too -- control the ball
and keep it away from QB Brady and the Pats.
For the Texans the rub is that the Pats also play ball control. Patriots are 2nd in the league behind Seahawks with 32.69 rushes per game.
Pats have an efficient passing game too ranking highly on yards per pass attempt with few QB sacks and low INTs.
Defensively the Texans are stronger against the pass, holding opponents to just 5.78 yards per pass (rank 8th) while the Patriots give up
a whopping 6.88 (rank 27th).
As our usual key stat matchups go this contest looks pretty even. Where the Patriots move to the top of the heap
is in scoring points at almost 35 per game. The questions is, "How do they do it?" Are they piling on points for a big
win like the college teams do? If so you can discount the figure somewhat. The other possibility is that they effectively convert
scoring opportunities into TDs not FGs. They do: Patriots score a TD for every 116 yards gained -- best in the league.
Total Points Scored
New England Patriots
2012 through Week 17
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