{"id":35353,"date":"2014-09-14T06:13:30","date_gmt":"2014-09-14T11:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=35353"},"modified":"2014-09-14T06:13:30","modified_gmt":"2014-09-14T11:13:30","slug":"week-2-showdown-houston-texans-at-oakland-raiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/week-2-showdown-houston-texans-at-oakland-raiders-35353\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 2 Showdown: Houston Texans at Oakland Raiders"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Matt<\/a>
Matt Schaub lost his starting role to a rookie, Derek Carr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Texans- Raiders<\/strong>
\n Time: 4:25<\/strong>
\n Line: HOU -3<\/strong>
\n Total: 40<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Houston Texans had lost 14 straight dating back to last season, but snapped that streak with a strong defensive effort despite missing No. 1 overall draft pick Jadeveon Clowney, who will be out the next 3-5 weeks.<\/p>\n

The Texans sacked Robert Griffin III three times, and also recovered two fumbles while holding the Redskins scoreless in the final 39 minute of the game for the 17-6 victory.<\/p>\n

Clowney had one tackle for a loss, but he injured himself in the second quarter by jumping up trying to deflect a pass. He had arthroscopic surgery on his knee this week, too.<\/p>\n

Safety D.J. Swearinger said of the injury, \u201cThat\u2019s something you don\u2019t want to happen as a rookie\u2026coming in with a lot of the hype he has; that\u2019s something he doesn\u2019t want to happen. I feel his frustration.\u201d<\/p>\n

First round pick Whitney Mercilus started every game last season before losing his starting role to Clowney. Head coach O\u2019Brien said of Mercilus \u201cI think he\u2019s learning the scheme\u2026it\u2019s not the easiest thing to learn right away for some players\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The Texans also have the J.J. Watt, and he received a $100 million contract with 51.8 M guaranteed. He had one sack, two tackles for a loss, five QB hits and a blocked extra point on Nov. 17 last season in a home loss. He\u2019s worth the money in other words.<\/p>\n

The OL created a lot of holes for Maurice Jones-Drew who rushed nine times for 11 yards, and QB Derek Carr was sacked twice, and only three of his 20 completions were for more than 10 yards. The Raiders also allowed 212 rushing yards to the Jets, and the Raiders dropped its 7th straight dating back to last season. It\u2019s the longest losing streak since 2006-07.<\/p>\n

Arian Foster had better luck with the rush, going for 103 yards on 27 carries, after having back surgery over the offseason. He rushed or 133 yards in a 31-24 win against the Texans in 2010, but that was when Houston was a formidable team. He may have a bigger game still this week.<\/p>\n

The Raiders lost three of its final four games at home last season by an average of 19.5 points. NFL oddsmakers aren\u2019t too inspired by Oakland either, setting the line 3-points in favor of the Texans, a team that won just two games last year. Life in Oakland remains rough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texans- Raiders Time: 4:25 Line: HOU -3 Total: 40 The Houston Texans had lost 14 straight dating back to last season, but snapped that streak with a strong defensive effort despite missing No. 1 overall draft pick Jadeveon Clowney, who will be out the next 3-5 weeks. The Texans sacked Robert Griffin III three times, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":34963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[1120,2382,2764,7599,300],"class_list":["post-35353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-houston-texans","tag-nfl-betting-odds","tag-nfl-oddsmakers","tag-nfl-week-2-picks","tag-oakland-raiders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35353","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\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35354,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35353\/revisions\/35354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}