Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles are two-touchdown favorites on the road against the Houston Texans as they look to keep their undefeated record intact. Will the Eagles keep soaring or will the Texans provide resistance on a short week? Will we have some rare Thursday night scoring? Which players will shine the most? That’s what our analysts attempted to figure out for the Week 9 opener.
Throughout the season, our VSiN experts will combine to give their best bets on every game. Check back for picks for the rest of Week 9 as we get closer to kickoff.
Odds are from DraftKings (unless noted) as of Wednesday night. Go to VSiN.com for Betting Splits and live odds across the NFL market.
Thursday, 8:15 p.m. ET
Dave Tuley: I’ll just come right out and say that I believe parity is alive and well in today’s NFL and I'll be on all three double-digit underdogs this weekend, including the Jets +13 versus the Bills and the Titans +12.5 at the Chiefs.
We know the Eagles (7-0) are the league’s last undefeated team and the Texans’ 1-5-1 record is only better than the Lions' 1-6 mark. However, we still don’t think any NFL team should be two-TD faves versus any other on any given Sunday (or Thursday night). On top of that, double-digit dogs — while not the automatic play they once were — are 5-4 ATS this season, with the Panthers’ 21-3 Week 7 home win over the Buccaneers being the lone outright upset. In fact, double-digit home dogs (like the Texans here) are 1-0 SU and ATS. For those curious, 9.5-point dogs are 2-2 ATS (with the Steelers’ 20-18 Week 6 home win over the Bucs being the next-biggest upset).
The Texans are a respectable 3-3-1 ATS and also covered in their lone game as double-digit dogs when they only lost 16-9 at the Broncos in Week 2 as 10-point dogs. The Texans have been 7-point pups three times and are 2-1 ATS in those games as they tied the Colts 20-20 in the season opener and beat the Jaguars outright 13-6 in Week 5, so they’re used to sticking around in games with big spreads.
Pick: Texans +14
Adam Burke: The Eagles should be able to cruise to an eighth straight victory and keep their perfect record going. As a result, this seems like a good opportunity for Nick Sirianni and the offensive coaches to keep Jalen Hurts as clean as humanly possible. Hurts averaged 12.8 rushing attempts over the first six games but only had two rushing attempts in the blowout win over the Steelers.
This game projects to be very similar, as a good number of throwing lanes should be open or the Eagles can use Miles Sanders and others to polish off a victory. Even with how much Hurts was running early in the season, he’s only averaging 43.3 rushing yards. It’s entirely possible that he breaks a couple of big ones on Thursday, but there's a better chance he stays under his rushing yards prop of 42.5 at DraftKings. As always, shop around for the best line, but a short week and a bad team should be a recipe for Hurts shying away from unnecessary punishment in a big favorite role.
Pick: Jalen Hurts Under 42.5 Rushing Yards (-120)