Texans vs Colts Predictions: Spread & Moneyline Picks (Week 18)
Action Network Design Team. Pictured: C.J. Stroud (left) Gardner Minshew (right).
Texans vs Colts Predictions: Spread & Moneyline Picks (Week 18)
My Texans vs Colts predictions are on the spread and moneyline for this NFL Week 18 clash. The latest Texans vs Colts odds have Houston listed as a 1-point favorite while the over/under sits at 47.5 total points.
It's still the final week of the regular season, but for all intents and purposes, the NFL Playoffs get underway on Saturday night with a Texans-Colts matchup in which the winner gets in and the loser goes home. Whichever team wins is not just guaranteed a playoff spot, but also has a shot at the division title if the Jaguars lose to the Titans on Sunday afternoon — not bad for two teams projected to be among the NFL's worst heading into the season.
How should you bet this unexpectedly high-stakes AFC South affair? Let's get into my game breakdown and Texans vs Colts picks.
Texans vs Colts Prediction
Note: The best price for Texans -1 is at BetMGM, PointsBet and bet365.
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Texans vs Colts Odds
| Texans Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Over/Under | Moneyline |
-1 -110 | 47.5 -110o / -110u | -118 |
| Colts Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Over/Under | Moneyline |
+1 -110 | 47.5 -110o / -110u | +100 |
Toggle the dropdowns below to hide or show how the Texans and Colts match up statistically:
Texans vs. Colts DVOA Breakdown
 | Offense | Defense | Edge |
| Overall DVOA | 14 | 18 | |
| Pass DVOA | 12 | 14 | |
| Rush DVOA | 30 | 24 |
| Offense | Defense | Edge |
| Overall DVOA | 13 | 17 | |
| Pass DVOA | 17 | 23 | |
| Rush DVOA | 9 | 2 |
After a 23-20 win over the Raiders (shoutout to Davante Adams for the impossible cover!), the Colts improved to 9-7 and are on the cusp of a playoff berth. First-year head coach Shane Steichen has done a tremendous job turning the page on the Frank Reich/Jeff Saturday/biggest blown lead in NFL history debacle that was the 2022 Colts season (not to mention, he is sorely missed in Philadelphia).
But despite what the record says, Steichen has more work to do before the Colts can be considered a winning team, because similar to those 2022 Vikings that they blew a 33-0 lead to last season, the underlying metrics suggest the Colts are more 7-9 than 9-7.
The underlying data also says the Texans aren't quite as good as their 9-7 record, but to a far lesser extent. Keep in mind that the Texans' full-season numbers are a bit misleading. They're dinged for losing by a combined score of 56-29 in the beta version of C.J. Stroud's first two NFL starts, and then dinged again because of the massive drop-off that occurred when the current borderline-elite version of Stroud got concussed and missed games.
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- The Colts are two games above .500 despite a negative point differential. Their Pythagorean win-loss record (i.e., expected win-loss given their point differential) sits at 7.6 wins, 8.4 losses. The Texans have overachieved as well, but only by 0.4 wins, with their +20 point differential implying a Pythagorean win expectation of 8.6. Remove the two games Stroud missed, and their point differential jumps to +31 across 14 games, which is right in line with their actual record.
- Our NFL Luck Rankings are the harshest to Indianapolis, pegging them as the second-luckiest team in the NFL and giving them just 6.6 expected wins.
- FTN's team DVOA metric rates the Colts 19th overall and 22nd when adjusted for recency and pegs them for 7.5 expected wins. For comparison, the Texans are 12th, both overall and weighted for recency, with an estimated win total of 8.2.
- Gardner Minshew's turnover-worthy play rate of 4.0% is fourth-highest among 29 quarterbacks with at least 300 dropbacks, according to PFF. The three quarterbacks that rank above him — Mac Jones, Desmond Ridder and Joshua Dobbs — have all been benched. Minshew is lucky to have an interception rate of just 1.9% (11th best), but that figure is primed for regression. The Texans failed to force a turnover in only 2-of-16 games this season, and unsurprisingly, they are 0-2 straight-up (SU) and 0-2 against the spread (ATS) in those games. When they force at least one turnover, they are 9-5 SU and 8-6 ATS. Those win rates tick up when looking only at games started by Stroud (8-4 SU, 7-5 ATS), and they tick up even more when also removing the game he failed to finish due to injury (8-3 SU, 7-4 ATS).
That's not to say luck is the sole reason Indianapolis is overachieving.
In a complete 180 from the disastrous Reich/Saturday era, the Colts are now one of the more well-coached teams in the league with Steichen at the helm. That includes holdover defensive coordinator Gus Bradley, whose defense has managed to hang tough despite lacking talent in the back seven by allowing a 37% third-down conversion rate (eighth lowest) and creating 24 takeaways (tied for 12th most).
Stroud has been slightly above-average on third down — his 0.054 Expected Points Added per play on third down ranks 15th of 31 qualified passers (per rbsdm.com) — but he has turned the ball over just nine times in 14 starts, boasting a glistening 21:5 TD:INT ratio. Collectively, the Texans have committed just 14 turnovers on the season, tied with Pittsburgh for the fewest in the NFL. Not to mention, third down and turnovers are two of the more volatile statistics, so it will likely be tough for Bradley's unit to keep up that level of play, particularly given the fact it doesn't rate nearly as high in other, more predictive metrics such as early down success rate (44.3%, 24th) and defensive DVOA (18th over the full season, 22nd when weighted for recency).
Stroud and the Texans offense figure to enjoy a schematic advantage against a Bradley defense that has long been known to live and die by zone coverage, playing man at the third-lowest rate in the league, per FTN. Stroud's numbers against man coverage are underwhelmingly average (53.8% completion rate, 6.1 Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, 84.2 passer rating), but he lights up zone to the tune of a 70.7% completion rate, 8.5 ANYA and a 111.6 passer rating.
Another reason why it's fair to question the sustainability of the Colts' third-down and takeaway numbers is that they have failed to generate consistent pressure on the quarterback. Pressure stats vary across data providers, but Pro Football Reference has the Colts 21st in pressure rate while FTN has them even lower at 24th.
While Stroud has yet to throw a pick under pressure, his numbers when under duress otherwise resemble that of your typical rookie quarterback, with a 51.1% completion rate, 5.4 YPA, two touchdowns, zero interceptions and a 71.9 rating. But when Stroud has a clean pocket, he's been elite, completing 68.3% of his passes for 9.3 YPA with 19 touchdowns, five interceptions and a passer rating of 111.3.
Left tackle Laremy Tunsil's status was in doubt early in the week, likely contributing to the Texans opening as slight underdogs, but he returned for the final two practices of the week and is on track to play. Despite specializing in offensive line injuries, the Texans have allowed the 11th-lowest pressure rate and rank top 10 in pass-blocking efficiency, per PFF.
The Texans are still not at full strength offensively, particularly at wide receiver. Tank Dell (fractured fibula) is done for the year, Noah Brown (back) has been ruled out and Robert Woods (hip) is listed as questionable after failing to practice all week (though it's not like Woods has been a factor even when healthy). Still, Stroud did recently get back Nico Collins, who is ninth among wide receivers in success rate (60.2%), and Dalton Schultz, who is seventh among tight ends in total EPA (22.4) despite missing two games, as well as fifth among tight ends in EPA per game (1.9), per nfelo.com.
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Even with Minshew likely to come back down to earth a bit, the Colts' best path to beating the Texans lies with their offense, which put up 31 points and 389 yards on Houston in Week 2.
Houston head coach DeMeco Ryans has a defensive background, so it's no surprise the Texans defense has been trending up since then and now ranks 15th in weighted DVOA, which weights recent games more heavily. A year after fielding the NFL's worst run defense, allowing 170.7 rushing yards per game, Ryans now has Houston ranked No. 2 in DVOA against the run, allowing just 88.2 rushing yards per game, third fewest. Jonathan Taylor hasn't been his usual dominant self this season, averaging career lows in yards per carry (4.0), yards after contact (2.84) and rate of rushes that go for 15 or more yards (2.9%).
The Texans pass defense takes a hit with the absence of sack leader Jonathan Greenard (ankle) and safety Jimmie Ward (quad). However, the Texans do boast a starting cornerback duo who each grade out in the top 25 among 125 qualifiers at PFF in second-year man Derek Stingley Jr. (80.6, 10th) and veteran Steven Nelson (72.8, 25th). In addition, slot corner Desmond King was re-inserted into the lineup in Week 13 and has been a revelation; his 76.2 grade would be squarely inside the top 25 if he had enough snaps to qualify.
The Colts need someone else to step up besides Michael Pittman Jr., who has been a volume monster with 104 catches but has just four touchdowns and is averaging just 10.7 yards per catch. Earlier in the year it would have been easy to point to rookie Josh Downs, but he has just 250 scoreless yards on 39 targets (6.4 yards per target) over his last eight games while fighting through a lingering knee injury.
The biggest edge Indianapolis has falls under the category of intangibles rather than X's and O's. All the pressure is on Stroud to live up to the hype in the first true big game of his career, on the Texans to prove they belong on primetime for the first time since Nov. 2022, and on Houston and Stroud to avoid a loss that surely would invoke comparisons to Deshaun Watson, who, too, got off to a historic start to his career but choked in his first big game, a 21-7 loss to the Colts as a 2-point home favorite in the 2018 Wild Card.
Meanwhile, the Colts get to play the underdog role (barring late line movement). They get to do it at Lucas Oil Stadium, where they're 3-0 since the bye after starting 1-4. They have a 31-20 road victory over Houston in Week 2 to draw confidence from. Maybe some of the players that were on last year's team will end up pressing in their first primetime game since going 0-3 and getting outscored 98-39 in a stretch of three primetime games in four weeks late last season, but this year's team has, to this point, been adept at overcoming adversity and distraction.
Texans vs Colts Picks, Predictions
The Texans are the better, more talented team and the team with more schematic advantages. The Colts are at home and have more intangible factors working in their favor, but those may not matter because Stroud is That Dude in the clutch. In his last 10 starts alone, he not only led his team to last-second wins against Tampa Bay in under one minute and Cincinnati in under two minutes, but he also put them ahead against the Falcons with 1:49 to go only to watch his defense give it all back on the ensuing drive, and drove from his own 11 to set up a game-tying field goal against the Jaguars only for their backup kicker to miss.
Stroud's 122.8 passer rating when tied or trailing with under two minutes remaining leads the NFL. And even if Stroud is indeed human, or is simply let down by other members of the team, there's still a margin for error because we have numerous data points that suggest Minshew is more likely to make a back-breaking mistake.
While the Colts' double-digit win over the Texans in Week 2 should give them confidence, the same can't be said for Colts backers. Rematches tend to favor the loser of the first matchup, especially when the margin of defeat was large, and especially in divisional rematches late in the year.
According to our Action Labs data, teams that lost by double-digits to a divisional foe in the first meeting are 55-36-3 (62%) ATS in the late-season rematch since 2005, excluding obvious blowout situations where the team is an underdog by more than one possession (i.e., by more than +8).
It's worth noting that contrary to expectation, teams haven't benefitted from being at home on a short week in these Saturday matchups, going 42-63-6 (40%) ATS over the last two decades, according to Action Labs data. Perhaps it's because most Saturday games tend to take place right around the holidays, a time when it's easy to see how being at home could easily come with more responsibilities and distractions than being on the road for a football player.
With the caveat that we're dealing in smaller sample sizes than usual when talking about Saturday games, it's worth noting that primetime home games have been the worst offenders, even when the visitor is also on short rest. Per Action Labs, primetime games featuring both teams on short rest have seen the home team go a dismal 7-22-2 (24%) ATS over the last two decades, falling short of the closing line by an average of 3.5 points per game.
Important note: Each team goes for two at least 10% of the time so I prefer the Texans moneyline beyond -1.
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