ASA TOP PLAY ON 10* Over 51 Points – Houston @ Detroit, Thursday at 12:30 PM ET - Two poor defenses facing off on Thanksgiving and we like the OVER here. Houston ranks 31st in total defense while Detroit ranks 27th. They both rank low in overall defensive efficiency as well with Houston 29th and Detroit 25th (per Football Outsiders). Each team’s offensive strength is their passing game and that matches up very well with the defensive weakness on the other side of the ball. The Texans ranks 22nd in overall pass defense and 27th in defensive yards per pass attempt. Detroit ranks 25th in pass defense and 26th in defensive yards per pass attempt. We expect both offenses to move the ball very well in this game. Detroit was shut out at Carolina last week 20-0. We like that situation as we fully expect them to focus offensively after that embarrassing output. They were also missing a number of key weapons that look like they may return on Thursday including RB Swift, WR’s Golladay & Amendola, and TE Hockenson. Offense hadn’t been a problem for Detroit prior to last week. In fact, they’ve faced 4 teams ranked in the top 10 in total defense this year and they’ve scored 30, 29, 23, and 21 points in those games. Now they face one of the worst defenses in the NFL and we look for a big performance from the Lion’s offense. The Houston defense has allowed at least 28 points in 6 of their 10 games and they only time they allowed less than 20 was vs Jacksonville (terrible offense) and vs Cleveland with 35+ MPH winds in a 10-7 game. Houston’s offense has really started playing well as of late after a very tough early season schedule. If we throw out their game in gale force winds in Cleveland where nobody was going to score points, the Texans have averaged 28 PPG over their last 5. We know the conditions will be perfect in the Dome in Detroit. Those conditions and the fast track has led to some very high scoring games in Detroit this year. In fact, all of the Lion’s 4 home games have gone OVER and 10 of the last 11 games here have gone OVER. This year they’ve scored 64, 62, 57 and 50 points in their home games. The last 2 scores listed were vs Washington & Chicago who have very good defenses (both top 10) and terrible offenses (both bottom 5) and they still were high scoring games. The final projected score here is right around Houston 27 – Detroit 24 and we expect both teams to top those numbers. Take the OVER.