{"id":11072,"date":"2010-11-30T01:53:05","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T06:53:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=11072"},"modified":"2010-11-30T13:58:48","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T18:58:48","slug":"thursday-night-football-picks-eagles-vs-texans-nfl-game-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/thursday-night-football-picks-eagles-vs-texans-nfl-game-preview-11072\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday Night Football Picks: Eagles Vs Texans NFL Game Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houston Texans at Philadelphia Eagles, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA
\nThursday, December 2, 2010, 8:20 pm EST, TV: NFL
\nOpening Line: Eagles -7
\nCurrent Line: Eagles -9
\nOpening Total: 50.5
\nCurrent Total: 50.5
\nMoney Line: Eagles -400 \/ Texans +325<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Eagles
Houston WR Andre Johnson was fined $25,000 for a fight last Sunday but will play Thursday night against the Eagles<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Houston Texans (5-6) showed some fight \u2013 literally \u2013 in a 20-0 win over Tennessee last week and hope to bring that same type of attitude into this Thursday Night Football matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles (7-4).\u00a0 Houston wide receiver Andre Johnson got into a fight with Tennessee cornerback Cortland Finnegan last Sunday but was simply fined $25,000 and awarded a game ball by head coach Gary Kubiak.\u00a0 Johnson finally showed the emotion the team has been lacking for most of this season and will need heading into this game at Philadelphia (-9).<\/p>\n

The Texans were not overly impressive on offense but they did what they needed to do and played their best defensive game of the year against the Titans, posting their first shutout since 2004.\u00a0 Running back Arian Foster rushed for 143 yards on 30 carries and added nine catches for 75 yards while Johnson also finished with nine catches and totaled 56 yards with a touchdown.\u00a0 Tennessee\u2019s Chris Johnson was held to a career-low five yards on seven carries.<\/p>\n

It also helped that Houston was facing rookie quarterback Rusty Smith, who threw for just 138 yards and tossed three interceptions in his first career start.\u00a0 Unlike Smith, Philadelphia\u2019s Michael Vick will present a number of problems for the NFL\u2019s second-worst pass defense, which is still giving up 286.2 yards per game through the air.<\/p>\n

Despite throwing his first pick of the season, Vick remains the league\u2019s top-rated passer after his second 300-yard passing game this year.\u00a0 He completed 29 of 44 passes for 333 yards with two touchdowns in a 31-26 loss at Chicago last week but was sacked four times for 40 yards and fumbled four times.<\/p>\n

The Texans have done a decent job against the run this season, holding opponents to 100.2 yards per game on the ground.\u00a0 They will need to deal with Philly running back LeSean McCoy in addition to Vick, as the duo has become a dangerous tandem.\u00a0 McCoy is averaging 5.0 yards per carry and leads all running backs with 59 catches.<\/p>\n

The Eagles surrendered four touchdown passes to Chicago\u2019s Jay Cutler last week and will need All-Pro cornerback Asante Samuel back if they want to contain Houston\u2019s Johnson.\u00a0 Samuel missed the game against the Bears with a knee injury, and his absence was felt by a weakened secondary.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia is giving up 23.4 points per game this season with the OVER cashing in six of the team\u2019s last seven games.\u00a0 The Eagles are 2-3 against the spread at home while the Texans are 3-2 ATS on the road.\u00a0 Four of Houston\u2019s five road games have gone OVER the total.<\/p>\n

Now that you have read this Thursday Night Football betting preview featuring the Eagles & Texans, check out the NFL odds on this and all the games to compare the best lines at multiple sportsbooks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Houston Texans at Philadelphia Eagles, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA Thursday, December 2, 2010, 8:20 pm EST, TV: NFL Opening Line: Eagles -7 Current Line: Eagles -9 Opening Total: 50.5 Current Total: 50.5 Money Line: Eagles -400 \/ Texans +325 The Houston Texans (5-6) showed some fight \u2013 literally \u2013 in a 20-0 win over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":3950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[4003,2508,1120,1930,1922,344,3872],"class_list":["post-11072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-eagles-texans-preview","tag-free-nfl-pick","tag-houston-texans","tag-nfl-odds","tag-nfl-picks","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-thursday-night-football-betting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11072"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11112,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11072\/revisions\/11112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}