{"id":20862,"date":"2012-01-06T01:06:47","date_gmt":"2012-01-06T06:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20862"},"modified":"2012-01-06T01:09:23","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T06:09:23","slug":"afc-wild-card-picks-texans-play-first-ever-playoff-game-against-bengals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/afc-wild-card-picks-texans-play-first-ever-playoff-game-against-bengals-20862\/","title":{"rendered":"AFC Wild Card Picks: Texans play first-ever playoff game against Bengals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cincinnati Bengals at Houston Texans
\nSaturday, 1\/7\/12, 4:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 NBC
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Houston -2.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Houston -3
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 39
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 38.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Texans
Arian Foster and the Texans will be playing their first-ever playoff game and beat the Bengals in Week 14.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of two rematches from the regular season will kick off the NFL playoffs when the Houston Texans host the Cincinnati Bengals on Saturday.\u00a0 Later in the day, the Detroit Lions will visit the New Orleans Saints<\/a>.\u00a0 The Texans (10-6) won 20-19 at Cincinnati in Week 14 en route to the AFC South title while the Bengals (9-7) qualified for the postseason as a Wild Card after finishing third behind division champion Baltimore and Pittsburgh in the AFC North.<\/p>\n

One of two rookie quarterbacks will advance to the next round, and Houston\u2019s T.J. Yates played like a veteran in the fourth quarter of the last meeting.\u00a0 Yates led two scoring drives of 80 yards or more, connecting on the game-winning touchdown pass to wide receiver Kevin Walters with six seconds remaining.\u00a0 He finished with 300 passing yards and two touchdowns with one interception while his counterpart Andy Dalton had 189.<\/p>\n

The Texans (-3, O\/U 38.5) have dropped three straight though following a seven-game winning streak, which was capped by that victory.\u00a0 They rested many of their starters in a 23-22 home loss to Tennessee last week, including Yates, who was relieved by veteran Jake Delhomme after suffering a separated left shoulder against the Titans.\u00a0 Delhomme played for the first time this season and did not play particularly well despite throwing for 211 yards and one touchdown.<\/p>\n

In the first meeting, Houston\u2019s running game was held in check by Cincinnati, and that could spell trouble in the rematch.\u00a0 Running backs Arian Foster and Ben Tate combined for 108 yards on 23 carries, and that number is not nearly as impressive when you consider Tate got 44 of them on one long run.\u00a0 Foster specifically had a hard time getting going with just 41, his second-lowest total of the season.<\/p>\n

The Bengals had the NFL\u2019s 10th<\/sup>-ranked run defense during the regular season, allowing 104.7 yards per game.\u00a0 They won two of three down the stretch but backed into the playoffs after losing 24-16 to the Ravens at home last week.\u00a0 Offensively, they will depend on Dalton, fellow rookie A.J. Green at wide receiver and veteran running back Cedric Benson to score against a tough Texans defense that ranked second overall in the league, surrendering 285.7 yards per game.\u00a0 Dalton is recovering from the flu and owns a 3-0 career record at Reliant Stadium, winning twice there in high school and once in college while playing at TCU.<\/p>\n

Cincinnati went 0-7 against playoff teams this year and has lost the last three meetings with the Texans, failing to cover the spread in the past four games between the teams.\u00a0 The Bengals also covered just one of their last eight games, going 1-5-2 vs. the line.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NFL handicappers<\/a> at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cincinnati Bengals at Houston Texans Saturday, 1\/7\/12, 4:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 NBC Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Houston -2.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Houston -3 Opening Total:\u00a0 39 Current Total:\u00a0 38.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker One of two rematches from the regular season will kick off the NFL playoffs when the Houston Texans host the Cincinnati Bengals on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":17251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[6313,6312,3386,302,1120,1772,1922,604,58,5199,6303,3583,605],"class_list":["post-20862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-afc-betting","tag-afc-picks","tag-andy-dalton","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-houston-texans","tag-nfl-betting","tag-nfl-picks","tag-nfl-playoffs","tag-playoffs","tag-pro-football-betting","tag-pro-football-picks","tag-t-j-yates","tag-wild-card"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20862","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=20862"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20864,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20862\/revisions\/20864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}