Texans vs. Colts: Start time, live TV schedule for NFL Week 14 matchup

First place in the AFC South is on the line when the Indianapolis Colts host the Houston Texans on Sunday — and it’s probably the best shot either team has at making the 2017 NFL playoffs.

The Texans, Colts, and Tennessee Titans are all knotted at the top of their division with 6-6 records, though Houston currently holds a tiebreaker over the two by virtue of its head-to-head record against them. That puts the entire AFC South at least two games behind Denver, which currently holds the second wild card spot with an 8-4 record. With an at-large berth a long shot, those three teams are all realistically vying for one chance at the postseason: the division champion’s automatic bid.

That makes Sunday’s showdown between budding rivals Houston and Indianapolis one of the biggest games of Week 14. With the Titans struggling to beat good teams — the winning percentage of the teams they’ve beaten this fall is just .361, 13th-best in the AFC — the winner of this game will have the inside track on that playoff spot. So will the Colts win the South for the 10th time in the last 14 seasons? Or will the Texans make it two straight years atop the NFL’s weakest division?

The two teams are offensive inverses of each other. The Colts have a strong quarterback and dynamic passing attack that gets little help from an ineffective running game. The Texans have a solid rushing game that works to prop up a woefully bad quarterback who has little success throwing the ball downfield.

Brock Osweiler has yet to live up to the four-year, $72 million contract he signed to relocate from Denver to Houston this offseason. The fifth-year athlete ranks 31st out of 32 starting quarterbacks in terms of passer rating, beating out only the malfunctioning JUGS machine — and now benched — Ryan Fitzpatrick. Osweiler has thrown for only 5.8 yards per pass while completing less than 60 percent of his attempts.

Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, for comparison, is having a rough season by his own standards but still averaging 7.7 yards per pass while connecting on 64 percent of his throws.

But Luck hasn’t gotten much help from his tailbacks. Frank Gore is still churning out yards, but his 3.8 yards per carry is significantly lower than his career average of 4.4. Indianapolis ranks 25th in the NFL in both yards per rush and rushing yards per game. Houston, conversely, is a top-10 team when it comes to moving the ball on the ground, thanks to the platoon of Lamar Miller and Alfred Blue. They’ve combined to rush for 1,166 yards and more than 4.2 yards per carry despite having a passing offense that provides few threats to defensive coordinators.

The pair totaled 162 rushing yards the last time these two teams met — a 26-23 overtime win for the Texans. Osweiler actually outplayed Luck that evening, throwing a pair of touchdowns as Houston rallied from a 14-point deficit in the game’s final three minutes to pull off a shocking win. Now the Colts have the opportunity to return the favor on their home field.

A Indianapolis victory wouldn’t just be a measure of revenge — it could also be the key to sending Luck and his team back to the playoffs in 2017.

When: 1 p.m. ET

Where: Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis

TV: CBS

Announcers: Kevin Harlan, Rich Gannon

Online: Sunday Ticket, CBS All Access