New Orleans Saints: Breaking down all areas vs. the Houston Texans
By Jason Reed
Historical matchup and prediction:
The New Orleans Saints and Houston Texans have squared off four-time since the Texans were added as an expansion team to the NFL. And wouldn’t you know, there is no advantage for either team as the overall record stands at 2-2.
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The Saints lost the last matchup between the two teams in 2015, 24-6, but these two teams are so drastically different that we cannot even use that as a basis of prediction.
Instead, we have to look at similar teams the Texans played last season and how they faired. The Texans really didn’t play many great quarterbacks like Brees last year and that might be why the went on such a long winning streak.
The team lost in Week 2 to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots, however, they were able to defeat Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts both times. They lost to Nick Foles and the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 16 behind a huge game from Foles.
Aside from that, the next-best quarterback that they played was probably Dak Prescott or a rookie Baker Mayfield. In those four games mentioned against the Patriots, Colts and Eagles the Texans allowed a combined 117 points (29.25 points per game).
The Saints did play Matt Ryan, Cam Newton, Jared Goff and Dak Prescott last year but the only quarterback that could do similar things as Watson is Newton and they faced a banged-up Newton in the last three weeks.
Only four teams scored more than the 28.25 points that good quarterbacks averaged against the Texans against the Saints last year and one of which was in the Week 17 second-unit game.
Next. Three bold predictions for Saints-Texans. dark
With that in mind and how the Texans play against good quarterbacks, I think Drew Brees is going to go enough to grind out a narrow, high-scoring game.