The Houston Texans (6-2 straight up/3-4-1 against the spread) take on the New York Jets (2-6 SU/2-6 ATS) at MetLife Stadium on Thursday to kick off the Week 9 NFL slate.
At bet365, the Jets are -2 favorites after opening at -1, despite the Texans drawing approximately 74% of all spread bets so far. Meanwhile, one of the league’s most efficient scorers inside the red zone is drawing significant public action in the Thursday Night Football anytime touchdown odds market, followed by several other popular choices.
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Thursday Night Football anytime touchdown odds
Joe Mixon, anytime TD favorite
Only nine players have crossed the goal line more than Joe Mixon this year, who has six touchdowns in just five games played.
His 1.2 touchdowns per game are behind only Derrick Henry and Kyren Williams, so it should be no surprise he’s Thursday’s biggest anytime touchdown favorite at -138 and bet365’s most-bet.
He faces a Jets defense that is allowing the sixth most rushing yards to opponents and has given up 10 rush touchdowns already, tied for fourth-most this season. Only three other players have scored multiple touchdowns for the Houston Texans this year, and two of them, Nico Collins and Stefon Diggs, will miss this game due to injury. That leaves Tank Dell with the next-best odds of scoring for Houston.
Tank Dell moves to WR1
Dell is +162 to score a touchdown on Thursday night, his odds taking a significant hit without Collins and Diggs in the lineup.
Now the de-facto WR1, Dell has quietly been tied with Collins for the most red zone targets on the team all season with seven. He’s scored on two of them: once against the Colts without Diggs last week and before that against the Patriots in Week 7.
Dell performs particularly well against man-to-man coverage, where he ranks in the top 25 among all wide receivers. The New York Jets tend to run man at one of the highest percentages, and Dell should have ample chances to exploit it, as New York will also be without both of its starting safeties on Thursday.
Large sample size for Breece Hall
Mixon’s seen the lion’s share of the workload for the Texans, but that’s nothing compared to his Jets counterpart Breece Hall, who is second in the league in total snaps among running backs. Hall has only found the end zone four times this season, as the Jets have struggled in the red zone with just a 56% touchdown conversion rate, which ranks 16th in the league.
Houston is allowing the seventh-fewest rushing touchdowns per game but is giving up touchdowns on 70% of opponents’ trips to the red zone, the third-worst this season.
Hall is a threat to score in the passing game, as well. He caught a touchdown in Week 2 against the Titans and logged four receiving touchdowns last year, which put him in a tie for third-most among all running backs. While the emergence of rookie Braelon Allen has robbed Hall of touchdown opportunities twice this year, he still has 75% of his team’s carries in the red zone, which is the seventh highest among all running backs.