Phil Agius
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The Houston Texans visit the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday in a game between a pair of 2-11 teams that neither might want to win that much, seeing as the only prize is a worse draft pick. It has been another wild week in Jacksonville, who fired Urban Meyer, mostly for off-field issues, but it’s hardly been going great on the field, either.
Sunday’s 1pm ET CBS game in the AFC South has a certain fascination to it all the same, so let’s take a look at the 4-leg same game parlay we’ve prepared for it, which pays at +1377 odds with FanDuel Sportsbook.
Texans +4.5 (-110)
Brandin Cooks anytime touchdown scorer (+210)
Davis Mills over 219.5 passing yards (-114)
Laviska Shenault over 35.5 receiving yards (-114)
Parlay odds: +1377
Texans +4.5 (-110)
The Texans won 37-21 when these teams met on the first day of the season, but if that beating was meant to be an alarm call for Urban Meyer in his first game as an NFL head coach, he didn’t seem to have learned much between then and his firing on Wednesday night. Darrell Bevell takes over as interim head coach for the Jags, who have 2 wins this season, each by just 3 points. One was a game against Miami in London in which they looked second-best throughout before a late rally, and the other was a 9-6 win over Buffalo that remains one of the season’s biggest outliers. They have not won by this many points at all this season.
In similar fashion, the Texans’ other win this season came unexpectedly against the Titans, but they have disappointed since, losing to the Jets and getting whacked by the Colts and Seahawks in the last 2 weeks. This game should get their attention, though, and it’s not often that they play an organization that seems in more trouble than they are. Getting this many points, the Texans can even avoid a victory that would likely condemn them to nothing higher than the 3rd pick in the draft and still cover. And getting more than a field goal against a team that failed to score last week seems like a good deal. Meyer’s firing could, of course, inspire a stronger effort from the Jaguars’ players, but bettors might want to wait for proof of that before putting any faith in them.
Be sure to check out our full game preview for Houston Texans vs Jacksonville Jaguars
Brandin Cooks anytime touchdown scorer (+210)
Cooks leads the Houston receiving yards list by more than 500 yards and is one of the few players on the roster that would still be coveted by other NFL teams. His 843 receiving yards have been accompanied by only 3 touchdowns, but he had a big day against the Jaguars defense in Week 1, with 132 receiving yards on only 5 receptions, and getting more than 2/1 for a team’s leading offensive weapon to score against a bad team is attractive.
Davis Mills over 219.5 passing yards (-114)
Tyrod Taylor was the Texans’ quarterback for the team’s first meeting, but rookie Davis Mills has looked the better option recently, which shows how far he has progressed. Mills threw for more than 300 yards against top defenses of the Patriots and Rams in his first spell as starter while Taylor was injured, and he got the job back when Taylor was benched against Indianapolis. He went over 300 yards once more even in a heavy loss to Seattle last week, and this line looks low given his production level.
Laviska Shenault over 35.5 receiving yards (-114)
A contrary leg of adding the over on a Jaguars player prop boosts the parlay odds and Laviska Shenault having 36 or more receiving yards shouldn’t matter too much to the chances of the Texans covering. Shenault has rather been overlooked in the last few weeks of Meyer’s tenure, but he is the teams’ 2nd-leading receiver with 505 yards and is absolutely the kind of player that any new coach would want to get more involved to see what the team really has with him. He might need only 1 or 2 catches to cash this leg.
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