Thursday Night Football Betting Preview: Will the Chiefs Blow Out the Texans?

While it may have looked a little dicey at times, the NFL season is here! The NFL kicks off this evening as the Kansas City Chiefs, the Super Bowl winner from a year ago, take on the Houston Texans.

Let's dive into what we think could be some interesting betting angles for Thursday night's clash.

The Offenses Are Quite Tasty -- Bet the Over

If there's one thing we can see from peeking at our power rankings, it's that there are likely to be some points put on the board tonight. Our algorithm has the Chiefs and Texans as top-10 offenses for 2020, and these teams put on an offensive fireworks show a year ago in the postseason.

Lest you forget, the last game of the campaign for the Texans came at the hands of the Chiefs, and they certainly didn't start scared, racing out to a 24-0 lead. But the Chiefs turned the afterburners on, not only erasing that deficit but covering the spread as 10.0-point favorites on their way to a 51-31 win.

That wasn't an aberration last year for the Chiefs. In their three playoff wins, they scored 30-plus points in each. During the regular season, they scored 30-plus points seven times. In addition, we have Houston slated to be the league's 10th-worst D in 2020.

And this KC offense could be even better in 2020. The Chiefs added Clyde Edwards-Helaire to an already-sensational offense, which should make the Patrick Mahomes-led attack even more frightening.

Looking over at oddsFire the over/under for the game has been set at 54 points. With the defenses likely still getting a bit acclimated due to a lack of preseason games, expect there to be quite a few points on the board, and public money certainly seems to support that, as well, with 77% of the money coming in on the over.

Other Bets to Consider

From a public betting perspective, it shouldn't come as a big surprise that the home Chiefs are getting considerable love -- around 60% of both total bets and money wagered is on KC. Kansas City is 10-1 against-the-spread (ATS) in their last 11 September games.

With that said, 9.5 points is a lot. As such, our model projects the Texans to cover about 60% of the time.

If a safer bet is more up your alley, peep the moneyline -- it will cost some serious coin (-430), but our model expects this one to hit 71.58% of the time.

Historical Betting Trends

-- Kansas City was great ATS in 2019 (13-5-1).

-- Houston was a moderate bet ATS-wise (8-9-1).

-- In the last 12 games between these two teams, the road team is 9-3 ATS.

-- The Chiefs have hit the over six times in their last seven home games in the month of September.

-- Kansas City's last September loss was in 2016 (a 19-12 defeat to Houston, no less), a string of 11 straight wins.

-- Kansas City's games went over the total in 10 of 19 games last year while Houston's did in 8 of 18 games.