It’s a new era in New England as their #3 overall draft pick in the 2024 NFL Draft Drake Maye will make his first career start this weekend. It won’t be an easy task for Maye as second-year sensation CJ Stroud brings his Houston Texans to town. This game will kick off Sunday at 1:00 p.m. ET on CBS. Let’s dive into this Texans-Patriots preview.
CJ Stroud and the Texans enter this game with a record of 4-1. They know how to win close games, all four of their victories have come by six points or less, three of them by four points or less. They are coming off a big emotional win, beating the Buffalo Bills in their home stadium last week.
For the Patriots, it’s time to hand the keys over to Drake Maye. Jacoby Brissett was always the short-term plan and Jerod Mayo thinks the quarterback from the University of North Carolina is ready for the big time. The Patriots’ motto has been to grind out games and keep them close. It worked for a Week 1 upset over Cincinnati, and they came close to beating both Seattle and Miami just last week.
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Houston Texans at New England Patriots Preview and Predictions
Drake Maye Over 25.5 Rushing Yards (-117)
Drake Maye finds himself in an interesting position taking over the Patriots’ job. Their offensive line just simply isn’t very good. Luckily for Maye, he’s a very mobile quarterback. At North Carolina, he ran the ball 184 times as a redshirt freshman for 698 yards. In his sophomore year before heading to the NFL Maye carried the call another 112 times for 449 yards.
In his first start, the Patriots are going to keep things simple for the kid. Quick reads, fast passes, and runs are going to be a majority of the plan. Plays will break down quickly and he’s going to resort to something he’s comfortable with, scrambling the ball. We’ve already seen this with rookie Caleb Williams against the Texans in Week 2. Williams ran just four times for 44 yards, and Maye is the more mobile of the two. Other rushing quarterbacks have had success against the Texans defense as well with Anthony Richardson gaining 56 yards on just six attempts in Week 1. Josh Allen went four-for-54 against them last week.
This is your chance to get in on Maye’s rushing yards before this number goes way up as the NFL sees his rushing ability. It’s also time to break out the prop ladder. I’m going to bet this ladder all the way to the top, Caesars is currently offering him all the way to 70 rush yards. We’ll start with over 25.5 at -117. 30+ yards at +110, 40+ at +230, 50+ at +450, 60+ +700. The final rung of the ladder will put us at 70+ rushing yards at 10/1 odds.
New England Patriots +7 (-115)
Let’s not kid anyone, this isn’t Tom Brady and Bill Belichick’s Patriots anymore. That being said, this is a grind-it-out team. They play their style of football, and they’ll make you play it too. They opened the season as huge underdogs to the Bengals and won the game outright. Week 2 they took Seattle to overtime. Last week they kept the Dolphins close and should have won the game if not for the wonky toe in toe out rule the NFL has.
This is a bit of a sandwich spot for Houston, they are coming off a big emotional win over Buffalo and face Green Bay next week. For as good as CJ Stroud has been for the Texans, he hasn’t been great at covering the spreads the favorite. He’s just 4-9 in ATS as the favorite, and when it comes to being a favorite of three or more points, Stroud is just 2-7. Mix all these factors in with the bump of a high draft pick in his first start for the Patriots, they’ll rally the troops and keep this one close, they might even be live Moneyline dogs at +235.
