Sunday Night DFS Single-Game Breakdown: Patriots at Texans

Nov 30, 2019

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The Houston Texans, at 7-4, are clinging to a one-game lead in the AFC South and with a home game against the 10-1 New England Patriots, things could get interesting if the Texans are unable to pull off the upset. Do we dare fade the Patriots DST and grimace when they strip-sack Deshaun Watson and take it to the house? That question and more will be answered as we break down the game and find the edge that can get us to the top of the leaderboards for the single-game slates on FanDuel and DraftKings.

Injuries

New England Patriots - everyone is questionable with illness
- Mohamed Sanu, WR - questionable (game-time decision)
- Phillip Dorsett, WR - questionable (likely to play)
- Julian Edelman, WR - questionable (likely to play)
No notable injuries for the Houston Texans

The Texans come into the contest healthy, while the New England Patriots have had the flu bug hit the team hard as they listed 17 players on their end-of-week injury report. Most are expected to play given the Sunday Night kickoff. The one key injury to keep an eye on is Mohamed Sanu, who we are not projecting to play. He's a game-time decision and if he is unable to go, he becomes a viable option against a Texans defense vulnerable to the pass. If he is unable to go, it's a boost to the value of the secondary receivers N'Keal Harry, Phillip Dorsett, and Jakobi Meyers. If Sanu plays, downgrade all three of those players (Dorsett is the only viable option in that scenario).

Evaluation of Vegas Spread and Total

New England -3.5 Over/Under 46

The Patriots are modest road favorites in a game projected to be average in terms of points scored. I do think there is a very small chance of blowout potential by the Patriots and have accounted for that in the following breakdown. Let's look at the likely game flow given this spread and total and assign some probabilities to each potential outcome.