Gillette Stadium – Foxborough, MA
Kickoff: Thursday, 8:25 p.m. ET
Line: Houston -2.5, Total: NA

With 2-0 Houston coming to town on a short week, injuries will put Bill Belichick’s ingenuity to the ultimate test.

QB Jimmy Garoppolo (70.0 CMP%, 498 yards, 4 TDs) looked like 2007 Tom Brady for the first 25 minutes of action on Sunday, filleting the Dolphins to the tune of 234 yards passing, three touchdowns and a 21-0 lead. Then he looked like 2008 Brady, going down with an injury—albeit a far-less-serious one to his shoulder—and leaving the game. The next man up for New England was Jacoby Brissett, a 6-foot-4 rookie with a big arm and zero snaps of NFL experience. He acquitted himself well, completing 6-of-9 nine passes for 92 yards. He led the Patriots on a 68-yard touchdown drive to open the second half, a score that ended up making the difference in the game after Dolphins QB Ryan Tannehill nearly mounted a late-game comeback. The Pats will have just a few days to regroup before they suit up in their Color Rush uniforms and host the Texans in Foxborough on Thursday Night. Houston looked good in a Week 1 win over Chicago, but made a much bigger statement this past weekend with a 19-12 victory against the Chiefs. One imagines that it was an important win for the Texans’ collective psyche, as they were embarrassed 30-0 at home in the playoffs against KC to end their season last year. As the unconventional final score suggests, it was Houston’s defense that carried the day this time around. J.J. Watt and co. kept the Chiefs under 300 yards of total offense and forced three turnovers, all off of fumbles in the first half. In the past ten seasons, teams coming off a divisional win and a winning record the previous year (New England) are 6-1 ATS against teams that had winning records the previous year—and the same trend is 33-11 since 1983. The Patriots are 10-1 ATS in their last 11 games as home underdogs, and outscored Denver and Cincinnati by a combined score of 86-38 in their last two games as home dogs.

Garoppolo’s injury has been diagnosed as a sprained AC joint, an injury minor enough for some to speculate that he could be back under center by Week 4. The diagnosis was a relief for Patriots fans, who are already enamored with their potential signal caller of the future. But it’s Brissett for now, so Belichick and OC Josh McDaniel will have to find a way to pare down the playbook to an even greater degree than they did to account for Brady’s absence. Brissett was honorable mention All-ACC as a senior at NC State last year (2,662 yards, 20 TDs, 6 INTs), and came to the Pats as a third-round draft pick. He has a cannon for an arm and is an above-average scrambler (as he showed by deking out Miami DE Mario Williams in the backfield and running ten yards for a first down), but most draft scouts viewed him as a longer-term project at quarterback. He won’t have Rob Gronkowski to rely on, but he looked in sync with TE Martellus Bennett (8 catches, 128 yards, TD), who broke out against the Dolphins with 114 yards and a touchdown. WR Julian Edelman (14 catches, 142 yards) has been characteristically excellent, newly-added WR Chris Hogan (7 catches, 119 yards, TD) has impressed and RB LeGarrette Blount (193 yards, 2 TDs) carried the offense after Garoppolo’s injury with 92 second-half rushing yards. Predictably, the defense has been led by LB Jamie Collins, who had five solo tackles, a pass deflected and an interception on Sunday. More surprising has been the emergence of DE Chris Long, the second overall pick of the 2008 NFL Draft who’s seen his career interrupted by injuries in recent years. While the Patriots didn’t sack Tannehill on Sunday, Long consistently got pressure on the quarterback and played a role in three of the Dolphins’ four turnovers.

WR DeAndre Hopkins gave Chiefs’ CB Marcus Peters (12 catches, 167 yards, 2 TDs) a workout at Reliant on Sunday, burning the highly regarded second-year corner for 7 catches, 113 yards and a touchdown. Hopkins has been a constant in the Texans offense in recent seasons, going for over 1,200 yards receiving in each of the past two seasons. What’s new in the system is a weapon to play opposite Hopkins, a gift that has come in the form of rookie wideout Will Fuller (9 catches, 211 yards, TD). The Notre Dame product is an absolute burner (4.32 40-yard dash at the combine) and it showed as he caught four balls for 107 yards against Kansas City. It’s encouraging that QB Brock Osweiler (60.3 CMP%, 499 yards, 3 TDs, 2 INTs) has been able to step in and take advantage of the duo right away, especially considering the KC game was only his ninth career start. He wasn’t at his sharpest on Sunday, throwing two interceptions and taking a couple sacks, but distributed the ball well enough to get the win. While playing in a nationally-televised night game in Foxborough is an especially daunting prospect for an inexperienced quarterback, Texans fans can take comfort in the fact that Osweiler’s best career game may have been a comeback win over New England last season. Plus, he can always hand the ball to RB Lamar Miller (189 yards), who rushed for 45 fourth-quarter yards to put away the Chiefs. The defense got a sack-and-a-half each from Watt and LB John Simon, who also had a sack last week. DEs Jadeveon Clowney and Whitney Mercilus have been relentless off the edge in both games this season, and their ability to get pressure on Brissett quickly will determine whether the Patriots can successfully adapt their signature short passing game to the rookie’s skills.