VSiN’s NFL expert digs into two games on Sunday’s slate.

The Jaguars were a bad football team with Urban Meyer and will be a bad football team without him. Still, some are expecting the Jags will play their best game of the season with the toxic headmaster fired in the middle of the week.

Jacksonville’s problems run much deeper than Meyer. Clips all over Twitter in the post-mortem of Jacksonville losses show wide receivers running into each other. They show Trevor Lawrence without windows to throw the football. Sure, the loyalty to guys like Carlos Hyde over James Robinson makes no sense whatsoever, but how much of the game-plan will change in the short amount of time leading up to the game?

Houston is obviously a bad football team as well, given that this is a battle of 2-11 teams, but should the Jaguars really be favored by more than five over any team? Davis Mills threw for 331 yards last week and looked very comfortable in the first half before the Seahawks woke up in the second half. The Jaguars have forced just six turnovers, which has made life even harder on Lawrence and the offense. Houston, meanwhile, has 21 takeaways. Jacksonville has the highest completion percentage against in the NFL, so Mills and the Texans may move the football better than anticipated.

It seems like perception and reality are at odds here. The perception is that Jacksonville shows up big without Meyer, but the reality is that they are not 5.5 points better than the Texans.

Pick: Texans, +5.5.

As a native Clevelander, I love home, but I hate the weather of late December. I would assume many Buffalonians feel the same way. It will be cold and gray on Sunday as the Panthers come to town. The winds won’t be nearly as fierce as what we have seen in past Bills games, but wind chills around 20 degrees for kickoff are in the forecast.

The Panthers sure aren’t going to enjoy going from Charlotte, N.C., to Western New York, especially with such a limited offense to begin with. Cam Newton was pulled again last week in favor of P.J. Walker, who once again failed to impress in relief. Now Matt Barkley is on the scene with Walker in quarantine. The Panthers are down to just 4.8 yards per play and rank 31st in the NFL. It seems unlikely that they’ll fare much better here against a Bills defense that has been at or near the top of the league in yards per play allowed and also some DVOA metrics throughout the season.

Carolina has 11 turnovers in the past five games. The Panthers just exceeded 200 passing yards in a game for the first time since Week 4. Their rushing attack is trending downward, approaching the bottom five in the NFL. This is a very limited offense going up against a good defense.

The Panthers defense is solid in its own right. In fact, these are the No. 1 and No. 2 defenses in yards per play allowed this season; Carolina is the only other team in the league allowing fewer than 5 yards per play. The Panthers allow the fewest yards per drive and also the sixth-fewest points per drive.

On a cold day in Buffalo, points might be at a premium with these two defenses and the inept Panthers offense.

Pick: Under 44.