The most anticipated game during the one o'clock hour this weekend will feature the Cincinnati Bengals hitting the road to take on the Houston Texans. These squads had opposite experiences last week. While the Bengals' new-look defense led to a win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Texans failed to pull off a comeback victory over the Buffalo Bills. Now, both teams shift their focus to a Sunday afternoon game that could end up having playoff implications.

Despite struggles from some of the best offensive players in the league, Cincinnati defeated the Tampa Bay last week, 33-27. Amazingly, the Bengals’ revamped defense forced four takeaways and scored a touchdown after an off-season of major investments and lots of new faces.

"You felt their presence. All of them, today, I noticed as I'm watching. All those D-linemen. (Bryan) Cook coming up with a forced fumble and a fumble recovery," head coach Zac Taylor said on Sunday. "It was just really fun to watch those guys get in the action and create all those turnovers, create that energy for the crowd early on."

Cincy superstar quarterback Joe Burrow seemed thrilled with the defense's performance. However, he said that it's on the offense to take advantage of the opportunities that the defense creates.

"You're gonna win a lot of football games if you get four turnovers," Burrow told reporters. "We've got to be able to capitalize on them a little bit more. We had - I think - two touchdowns and two field goals off of them, so we've got to get that fixed. But it was a good one."

Going against the Texans presents an incredibly difficult test for the Bengals' offensive line. The good news is that Cincinnati played very well in the trenches last week, which alleviates some of the pass protection concerns from the preseason.

"They were good. They kept (Joe Burrow) clean," Zac Taylor said on Monday. "I was really impressed with the job that they did, number one in protection, keeping Joe clean, giving him a lot of time to either extend the pocket and make some plays or just stand back there and wait for somebody to get open. The run game: there were some really big holes there for Chase (Brown). Some grimey runs there at the end of the game that I thought were good. And then there's some opportunities, I think, just all across the board with everybody involved in the blocking to get some bigger plays that we maybe missed."

Around the same time the Bengals took care of the Buccaneers, Houston fell to Buffalo, 36-31. Though the Texans had an opportunity to win the game, Bills pass rusher Greg Rousseau recovered a strip-sack fumble of Houston quarterback C.J. Stroud in the red zone to lock up the victory for Buffalo.

"I'm trying my best to protect the ball but also to make plays," Stroud explained after the loss. "We needed seven right there, so I can't be super conservative. I've got to be able to take shots, but sometimes it doesn't roll your way. We'll try to fix that and then go forward."

Honestly, the Texans' offense did enough to win the game. However, the defense let the team down. Not only did that unit finish the game with zero takeaways, but Houston also allowed 36 points, its most in a regular-season game since January of 2023.

"The issues are there for us defensively. We had multiple opportunities to make plays. Had chances to make plays on the football. We didn't make plays. We gave up way too many explosives. So, you give up explosives, you had opportunities to take the football away, and you don't do those things, and you're going against a top offense in the NFL; that's what's going to happen," Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans said during his postgame press conference. "We've got to cover better. We've got to finish better. We did not do that today."

Unfortunately for Houston, its defensive matchup is not going to be any easier this weekend. The Texans will have to figure out how to limit Joe Burrow as well as elite wide receivers Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins.

"The challenges for this week going against Cincinnati. Again, [a] well-coached football team," DeMeco Ryans told reporters on Monday. "We know they have an explosive offense. Their receivers and the quarterback, they've done a really great job over the past few years of making those explosive plays, and that's something that we've shown we gave up last week. So, it's going to be a test for our defense right back again this week. You have to eliminate the explosive plays."

Unfortunately for the Cincy faithful, Joe Burrow is dealing with some back tightness. However, he said it would be "ridiculous" for a minor injury like that to keep him out of Sunday's game. Though he hasn't been able to practice much, he knows what it will take for the Bengals to succeed against the Texans' defense.

"This is a big week for us. You have to find that line of aggressiveness, but also understand what kind of front they have and make sure you don't turn a bad play into a worse one. But we'll certainly pick our spots to be aggressive. They'll give us some opportunities, but you have to pick those wisely," Burrow said Wednesday. "(Josh Allen) made some incredible plays last week. That's for sure. That's part of what makes the great ones great; sometimes you've got to make a little something out of nothing. And I pride myself on being able to do that. So, that'll continue to be part of my game."

Prediction for Cincinnati Bengals @ Houston Texans (-2.5)

One would think that these squads have a lot of familiarity with each other, but that is actually not the case. In fact, Cincy and Houston haven't played each other since November of 2023. Needless to say, these organizations have changed a lot since then. I don't think the Texans defense that we saw in Week One is indicative of how good this unit can be. Houston had some slip-ups that it should be able to correct in this matchup. Still, the Bengals have one of the most dynamic offenses in the NFL, and that will present a daunting task for the Texans defensively. Not to mention, Cincy's defense looks to be much improved from last year, and C.J. Stroud appears to still be struggling with turnovers after he lost two fumbles in the game with the Bills. Considering the Bengals forced four fumbles against the Buccaneers, I imagine that the turnover bug will once again bite C.J. Stroud in the ass. And while Houston's defense will play better than it did last week, the one-two punch of Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins will cause a lot of problems for a Houston secondary that struggled to defend the deep ball. I'm picking Cincinnati to win this thing outright.

Prediction: Bengals 23 - 22 Texans

How to watch Cincinnati Bengals @ Houston Texans (-2.5)

Bengals vs. Texans starts at 1:00 p.m. EDT at Reliant Stadium. You can watch it on CBS or stream it on Paramount+.

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