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TEXANS: Expectations should be lowered for the Texans. While they coasted to a comfortable win against the Browns, this is a much more formidable opponent. They’re on the road, and playing against a defense that allowed only 24 touchdowns in the regular season – 5 fewer than any other team. In the not-too-distant past, Houston’s offense scored only one touchdown in a home win against the Titans and only one touchdown in a loss at New York. So probably just 2 TDs here.
C.J. Stroud looks like he’s going to be one of the league’s top half-dozen quarterbacks in short order (if he’s not already). His numbers have been pretty remarkable, with him averaging 274 passing yards in his 16 starts, with 26 touchdowns versus only 5 interceptions. In the last 20 years, only two rookie quarterbacks have averaged more yards per attempt (Ben Roethlisberger and Deshaun Watson). And let the record show that Stroud actually played pretty well in that Week 1 game. He didn’t get the offense in the end zone, but he completed 64 percent of his passes and threw for 242 yards, with no interceptions. He’s a better quarterback now, making it at least possible that he’ll outperform some of the other seven quarterbacks in action this week. But the Ravens are tough, as evidenced by them making things hard for Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert and others.
The 49ers share offensive DNA with the Texans, and Brock Purdy had his worst game against this defense. Baltimore allowed an average of 218 passing yards in the regular season, and with only 18 TDs in 17 games. With Stroud having struggled in recent games against the Jets and Titans, we’re expecting lesser numbers than usual. We’re putting him down for 235 passing yards, with just one touchdown pass more likely than two. Stroud is mobile but doesn’t look to run much. He averaged only 11 rushing yards in the regular season but at least scored 3 of the team’s 10 rushing touchdowns on his own.
Devin Singletary shouldn’t be a big factor. He’s firmly entrenched as the team’s featured back, at least. But he’s an ordinary back operating behind a modest line. The Bills, recall, chose to move on from Singletary. He had a pair of 100-yard games in the middle of the season, winning their starting job. But since that time, he’s averaged 62 rushing and 17 receiving yards in his last eight games, with 3 TDs. Here he’s facing an above-average run defense. The Ravens allowed an average of 109 rushing yards in the regular season (that’s 14th) but with a league-low 6 TD runs. The Texans averaged 100 rushing yards in their last 10 regular-season games, with 7 TDs, but they should come in a little lower than those averages here.
It’s not a great situation for Nico Collins. Overall passing production should be down, resulting in deflated numbers for him. But he’s definitely the featured target, and the Ravens haven't been particularly good at shutting down such players. Keenan Allen, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Michael Pittman all caught at least 9 passes against this defense. Fifteen receivers, in fact, have caught at least 6 passes. That includes Collins catching 6 passes for 80 yards back in Week 1. With the Texans consistently drawing up plays to get him the ball, he’ll still get some numbers (in general, we have more confidence in him versus the Ravens rather than Stefon Diggs versus Kansas City). Collins has averaged 5.4 catches for 87 yards, with 9 TDs in 16 games.
John Metchie appears to be the 2nd-best wide receiver on this team. He’s been their 5th-best receiver for most of the season, but Tank Dell and Noah Brown are on IR now, and Robert Woods has a hip injury that limited his playing time last week. (And Woods hasn’t been a big factor anyway, with only 41 catches for 437 yards and a touchdown in 15 games.) Metchie, meanwhile, is starting to get on the field. He was on the field for over 60 percent of their plays in their last two games, and he moved up to a career-high 78 percent snap count against the Browns. He caught all 3 passes thrown his way in that game, for 44 yards. He was not as impressive in the other two games, with just 1 catch in both of them. Granted, this isn’t much, but we’re slotting Metchie a little higher than Woods (and we’re assuming Woods will be relatively healthy).
We’re putting a modest grade on Dalton Schultz. With Stroud at quarterback, he’s averaged 3.4 catches for 40 yards in 14 games, with 6 TDs. But this doesn’t seem like a good matchup. Overall production should be down. The Ravens allowed only 3 TD passes to tight ends in the regular season. In the earlier meeting, Schultz caught 2 passes for 4 yards.
With the wide receiver injuries, Brevin Jordan is now part of this offense. In each of Stroud’s last five games, Jordan has been on the field for at least half of the plays. He’s caught 9 passes for 194 yards and a touchdown in those games. Jordan caught only 1 pass last week, but it was a big one, turning on the jets after a short catch to score a 76-yard touchdown.
The offense-defense numbers suggest Ka’imi Fairbairn will be the 2nd-highest scoring kicker of the work. Baltimore in the regular season allowed 124 points against the position, tying for the most among the remaining teams. Fairbairn is a capable enough player, with solid accuracy and range. He’s made 73 percent of his career attempts from 50-plus, which is slightly higher than the most heralded kicker in this game (though Tucker plays more games in adverse conditions). Fairbairn has averaged 8.8 points in his 12 full games, slightly more than any of the other kickers still playing. But the Texans are 9-point underdogs in this game, making it different than a usual week. The last four times this team has lost, it’s scored 1, 3, 0 and 1 kicking points.
The performance numbers suggest the Texans Defense will finish with the 2nd-best pass rush numbers of the week. With his playing style, Lamar Jackson takes some sacks, and Houston’s defense has improved as the season has progressed – 29 sacks and 10 interceptions in its last nine games (it had 8 fewer sacks and 4 fewer picks in its first nine). Turnover potential doesn’t look great. Baltimore threw only 7 interceptions in the regular season, the fewest of the remaining teams (12 lost fumbles were the most, but that totals to 19 turnovers in 17 games – just over 1 per week). When the Texans played at Baltimore in Week 1, they were able to come away with 4 sacks, an interception and a fumble recovery. Houston scored 2 touchdowns on kickoff returns in the regular season, but both by bigger guys who are unlikely to ever do it again (Andrew Beck, Dameon Pierce). Steven Sims and Desmond King may handle more of the returns in this game; both have scored return touchdowns in the past, but neither since 2019.
This report is just a small snippet of the Week 20 "January Playoffs Edition" of Fantasy Index Weekly, part of the In-Season Analyst package. The newsletter includes our player rankings and 10-plus pages of matchup previews, plus stat projections and custom rankings for the games being played this weekend.
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