The Houston Texans will be traveling to Jacksonville to take on the Jaguars in a Week 3 AFC South showdown. The Texans come into this matchup winless and will be looking to get their first win of the season, while the Jaguars are looking to improve to 2-1.
Houston has a rookie head coach in DeMeco Ryans, a rookie quarterback in CJ Stroud, and a very young but talented roster. Jacksonville is an up-and-coming and perennial contender in the AFC, who is looking to take advantage of a decimated Texans team.
Houston is dealing with an immense amount of injuries on both sides of the ball going into this matchup. The Texans have ruled out Derek Stingley Jr., Jalen Pitre, Tavierre Thomas, and Laremy Tunsil who are all four key starters for Houston. With big losses in their secondary, that means that Jimmie Ward will make his Texans debut, and former Jaguar and UCF Knight Shaquill Griffin will be inserted into the starting line-up. Jacksonville has ruled out Zay Jones and Antonio Johnson, but has Josh Allen listed as questionable for the game after dealing with a minor shoulder injury he suffered in week two.
CJ Stroud had an extremely impressive week two performance versus the Indianapolis Colts despite the loss. Stroud completed 30-of-47 passes for 384 yards, two touchdowns, and zero interceptions. His skill position players stepped up big time for him with a lot of contributors on the outside. Nico Collins had seven receptions for 146 yards and one touchdown, Robert Woods had six catches for 74 yards, and rookie Tank Dell had seven receptions for 72 yards and one touchdown. Former Gators running back Dameon Pierce has struggled this season as he only has 26 carries for 69 yards in two weeks.
Offensively, the Jaguars will be looking to take advantage of a weak and injured Texans defense, especially since last week they couldn’t even get into the endzone. Against the Chiefs last week, Jacksonville struggled to get anything going on offense as they went 3-12 on third down, 0-7 in the red zone and only scored nine points. Trevor Lawrence wasn’t impressive as he threw 22-of-41 passes for 216 yards with zero touchdowns and a QBR of 16.5. For the Jaguars, only two players stood out last week on offense: Christian Kirk and Evan Engram. Kirk had a big bounce-back game with 11 receptions for 110 yards and Engram had six receptions for 57 yards.
Jacksonville’s defense through two weeks has been the strong point of the team and will be looking to carry that momentum into this week. They limited the Colts’ offense in week one to 14 points, and a Patrick Mahomes led Chiefs offense to just 17 points. Jacksonville’s defense is tied for second in the NFL with six takeaways, they have five sacks, and CJ Stroud is the most-sacked quarterback in the NFL heading into week three. Josh Allen has been incredible to begin the season with three sacks, three tackles for loss, and seven quarterback pressures. He looks to continue that against Houston.
Despite the Texans having won nine of the last 12 matchups versus the Jaguars, they come into this game as 8.5-point underdogs (via FanDuel). Jacksonville will look to go up 2-0 in the division and beat the Texans at home for the first time since 2017.
Kickoff will be at Everbank Field on Sep 24th, at 1 PM EST.