Wild Card Saturday open thread: Raiders at Texans

While we all await the Detroit Lions’ fate tonight against the Seattle Seahawks, the NFL Playoffs kick off in Houston—where, coincidentally, the playoffs will end, too. The Texans host the Oakland Raiders in an AFC matchup between the four and five seeds.

Connor Cook will start for the Raiders and hopes to earn his first career playoff win in his first career NFL start.

The Texans will start Brock Osweiler, who was benched earlier in the year, despite signing a massive contract with Houston in the offseason. He’s back as the team’s starter after backup Tom Savage suffered a concussion.

Both teams have impressive defenses, but Oakland comes into the game banged up. Mario Edwards is dealing with an illness, while on the offensive side, left tackle Donald Penn has been declared out.

Three weeks ago—with Derek Carr behind center—the Raiders would have looked like huge favorites in this matchup, but now that they are forced to start their third-string quarterback, the Texans are actually 3.5-point favorites.

Chat with us during the game below and get ready as the Lions game draws near.