New York Jets vs. Houston Texans Thursday Night Football, Week 9: game prediction, open thread

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How wonderful — another “New York” team playing primetime football

Once again, the NFL decided to put a “New York” team in primetime, thereby giving football fans exactly what they hoped to watch. Tonight, the New York Jets welcome the Houston Texans to MetLife Stadium for Thursday Night Football.

A game that held plenty of intrigue when the season began, now features a Jets team bloated by talent that chose to punt the season away by parting ways with head coach Robert Saleh. The Jets, now 2-6, haven’t won a game since Saleh was given a personal escort out of their New Jersey campus — and they currently occupy the cellar of the AFC East. A team-wide darkness retreat with special tea might be just the thing to fix all that’s broken.

Or not.

As for the Texans, they hit the Meadowlands with an AFC South-best 6-2 record. Quarterback C.J. Stroud has found his sophomore season more challenging, but he’s playing plenty well by offering complementary football to Houston’s stout defense. Things won’t get any easier for Stroud this evening, as he’ll have to face the Jets’ defense without wide receivers Nico Collins (one more week on IR) and Stefon Diggs (out for the season with ACL injury).

Despite all that, this feels like a game the Texans should win, easily. These Jets are not the standard of recent seasons, and their follies are made all the more amusing by the constant meddling that Rodgers initiates in a shortsighted attempt to recapture that vintage Green Bay magic.

Buffalo Bills fans should root for the Jets tonight because the Bills could really benefit from the Texans losing a few games. Maybe it’s due to that special leafy drink Rodgers flouts, but the Jets enter tonight’s game as 2.5-point favorites (-2.5) with FanDuel Sportsbook. Crazy, right? Yes. The Jets are in fact favored because they’re the home team in this short-week game, not because they’re observably better than Houston.

Here’s what Rachel Auberger explained about rooting for the Jets tonight:

It makes sense to root for the divisional opponent here, but don’t worry — they are currently the basement dwellers so winning won’t hurt the Bills. In fact, if someone would beat the Texans, it would greatly help. Buffalo can’t do anything to move above Houston on their own due to their Week 5 loss in Texas. So, until they are firmly a couple of games behind the Bills, we will be rooting for whomever they are playing.

The Texans will most likely try to make heavy use of running back Joe Mixon, while Stroud must learn to view wide receiver Tank Dell as his new current WR1. If the Jets are to win tonight, they’ll need to catch lightning in an interim head-coach bottle — and find outstanding games from the likes of Rodgers, Breece Hall, Davante Adams, Garrett Wilson, and a host of defensive players. Regardless of who’s playing football for these Jets, everything feels broken. So much for Super Bowl. This team feels like bust.

Even though rooting for the Jets benefits the Bills, I can’t pick them to win against the Texans — no matter their injuries at receiver.

This one could get ugly quick. I’ll be paying more attention to costumes in the crowd, and of course tuning in to witness Fitzmagic and the always awesome TNF crew.

Houston Texans 31, New York Jets 20

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