The Patriots offense (without Garoppolo) couldn't do anything against the Miami Dolphins defense.
The Texans defense is much better than that of the Dolphins. Hell, even the Texans
offense I would argue is as good as that of the Dolphins, possibly better as well. edit: Upon looking it up, that confirmed my suspicions. The Dolphins offense, ranked number 25, put up some whoop-ass on the Patriots once Garoppolo left the field. Why can't the Texans offense, ranked number 19, do the same?
I would honestly bet on the Texans to cover the spread even if you removed Texans offense and replaced it with Cleveland Browns offense, supposing Texans defense gets to still play.
As it stands, this is a blowout. The close spread has got to be a knee-jerk reaction to the Patriots historically being a much more successful team than the Texans, and the Patriots haven't lost a home game since 2014. Of course, that completely ignores all current factors going into this game.
The patriots D (which are rated 25th overall) knows no matter how many times they stop the (underrated) Texans Offense, their own offense will put up few points if any, and that
sucks.
It's also worth noting that the Patriots D would be ranked even worse were it not for the Patriots O keeping the D off the field for their first game and part of their second game. I wouldn't count on the Patriots O to keep the D off the field.
The fact that Texans D is better than Patriots D should be considered indisputable. Now let's talk about offense?
QB:
Texans: Brock Osweiller. Osweiller is not the next Aaron Rodgers, but he doesn't have to be in order to be better than a third string QB who is a total joke, as has already been demonstrated by his performance against the Dolphins
Patriots: A third string nobody QB. And if he also goes down, which is likely to happen as Tim pointed out, they're even more screwed.
Wide receiver:
Texans: wisely invested their first round pick in a wide receiver which has clearly helped them.
Patriots: Gronk (technically not a WR but we all know what he's capable of) who is injured. So that leaves... Edelman. We all know how many balls he caught with a crappy QB throwing him the ball. Also, the odds of him being the QB himself are very real, meaning they lose their own best WR at the same time.
Running back:
Ok, so the running backs appear to be evenly matched.
Even so, some experts consider the Texans RB to be several steps ahead of the Patriots.
The icing on the cake, of course, is one of these teams is going to be forced to run the ball so much it will be easy to predict. The other teams' RB will have some element of surprise.
I would honestly consider this current Houston Texans team to be the third best AFC team, behind only the Steelers (number 1) and Broncos (number 2). Keep in mind, that supposes the Patriots are at full strength. In which case I'd give them number 4. The Patriots as they are today, are arguably worse than the Cleveland Browns.