NFL Playoffs: Kansas City Chiefs Slightly Favored Over Houston Texans

John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

The 2016 NFL playoffs will officially get underway on Saturday with the Kansas City Chiefs hitting the road to face off against the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium.

Both of these AFC teams were thought to be out of the playoff picture early in the 2015 NFL season. The Chiefs started this year’s campaign with five losses in the first six weeks of play. Ironically enough, the team’s first win came against the Texans in Week 1 on the road.

As for Houston, J.J. Watt and company had a similar start to the season with five losses in their first seven games. Along with simply being unable to put it together on both sides of the football, the Texans dealt with a quarterback problem with Ryan Mallett and Brian Hoyer trading spots over and over again.

Fortunately, despite a rough start to the season, both the Chiefs and Texans are playoff bound and will attempt to advance on Saturday. Houston will be the home team in this matchup, but won’t be the favorite with the Chiefs sporting a -3.5 point spread as of Thursday via Sportsbook.ag.

Despite playing in arguably the worst division (AFC South) in the NFL this season, the Texans were able to finish the regular season strong. Bill O’Brien’s squad won three straight games against divisional opponents to clinch the AFC South and, therefore, punch their ticket to the NFL playoffs.

Kansas City, however, is arguably the hottest team in the NFL right now. Alex Smith has led the Chiefs to 10 straight wins to end the regular-season campaign. Kansas City has been firing on all cylinders after a rough start to the year with no opponent able to get the best of Andy Reid’s boys.

Although the Texans will come prepared with Watt likely looking to leave his mark in the postseason, the Chiefs should win this playoff game and advance without much struggle. The -3.5 point spread is low in my opinion with Kansas City clearly the superior of the two teams.