8* Take Jacksonville (#464)

What on earth are the Texans doing as road favorites of a TD or more?  Houston is a 1-6 football team.  They closed their facilities during the bye week due to COVID issues. While there was no sell-off at the trading deadline, multiple veterans had their name bandied about in trade talks, never a good sign for locker room chemistry.   Houston has been outgained by 1.3 yards per rush for the full season.  Opposing QB’s have a 114.5 QB rating against them; worst in the NFL.  This team has absolutely no business in this pointspread range, asked to win a game by more than a touchdown against a divisional opponent in revenge for a loss just a few weeks back. 

I love Doug Marrone’s quotes coming out of the Jaguars bye week; a coach who is going to take shots with his job on the line over the back half of the campaign.  “I'm not going to bullshit anyone, I'm kind of fired up. … I'm going to bust my ass, I mean I'm telling you now. I'm going to look at some things, I want to go a little bit outside the box. I want to challenge these coaches and challenge these players and see [what they can do]. I'm going to do whatever can to get the best out of this team and best out of these players. I'm sure people are going to mock me for that or say whatever the hell they want, but I really don't give a shit. I'm fired up. I'm going to go after it and however it falls, it falls, but it's open for me. I've done crazy shit before. A lot of people don't know, we changed an offense four or five days prior to the opening of our season in Syracuse my last year. We just went in a whole different direction and, shit, it worked out."

The Jaguars are starting rookie Jake Luton at quarterback this week following the Gardner Minshew injury. I watched Luton repeatedly last year at Oregon State and I want my money ON this QB in his first NFL start, especially against a defense that doesn’t have any film on him; not even from preseason.  Take the Jaguars.