Tag: Steelers

Patriots to Beat Steelers but Pittsburgh to Beat the Spread

Posted on by Online Betting Pro

The New England Patriots have breezed to a record sixth consecutive AFC Championship game and now just the Pittsburgh Steelers stand between them and the Super Bowl. It will be a really tall order for Pittsburgh to win this one as the Pats have looked the best team in the league by some distance this season and are 11/8 favourites to win the Super Bowl (Sky Bet).

Pittsburgh Steelers

The Steelers closed the regular season with seven straight wins to finish 11-5, winning the NFC North and qualifying as third seeds for the playoffs. They destroyed the Miami Dolphins in the Wildcard Round and then went on to face second-seeded Kansas City in the Divisional Round. The Chiefs were favourites and we tipped it to be a very close game but said the Steelers would steal it, and that is exactly what happened as they ran out 18-16 winners in a tense affair. Steelers kicker set a postseason record by scoring six field goals to edge it for Pittsburgh by the slenderest of margins. They go into the championship game as underdogs, but they will be emboldened by their recent form.

New England Patriots

New England has had the clearest run to the championship game than any of the other teams still left in the playoffs. QB Tom Brady was suspended for the first four games of the season over his role in the Deflategate fiasco, but it mattered little as the Pats powered to a 14-2 record, the best in the league. It left them as first seed in the AFC – a valuable position they squandered last season – and they sat out the Wildcard Round before securing an easy home game against the Houston Texans in the Divisional Round.

Houston finished 9-7 and only scraped through thanks to an injury crisis at Oakland, and Brady duly picked them off. New England ran out 34-16 winners, covering the largest point spread in playoff history, as we suggested they would. Patriots RB Dion Lewis looked sensational as he used his lightning pace to become the first player to score on a rush, a catch and a kick return in a postseason game. With him and Brady firing on all cylinders, the Pats look invincible at present.

Projections

The Patriots beat the Steelers 27-16 in October in the regular season, but you should not read too much into that as Pittsburgh were missing QB Ben Roethlisberger, who is now back at full strength, and the Pats were blessed with the talents of star receiver Rob Gronkowski, who is now injured. The Steelers finished the regular season with the 12th best defence and have conceded just 28 points in two playoff games. Offensively they are superb as Roethlisberger has lots of great passing options, which creates gaps of space all over the field. In Le’Veon Bell they also have one of the league’s best RBs, and he has been sensational in the postseason. New England will need to shut him down to have any chance of winning.

The Steelers, meanwhile, will have to do their best to make Brady uncomfortable, as he is on a roll and has proven himself time and time again in the postseason. It looks like being a really close encounter that the Pats should just about shade, so the 5/12 on offer at Paddy Power on a New England win in front of their home crowd looks a decent bet, despite not providing a great deal of value. To get more bang for your buck, you will have to consider spread betting, and then it gets more complicated. It is not hard to imagine the Pats winning this by around three points, so they might not cover the spread and the 7/10 Bet365 has on Pittsburgh +6.5 looks a really good option as they are a competitive, battling team.

NFL playoffs: Steelers and Texans favourites in AFC Wildcard Round

Posted on by Online Betting Pro

NFL fans have been treated to an exciting regular season full of twists and turns, but we are now moving into the business end of the season: the playoffs. We start with the Wildcard Round, which sees the two division winners with the lowest win records in each conference take on the two best runners-up. In the AFC the Houston Texans host the injury-hit Oakland Raiders in the first game, while the in-form Pittsburgh Steelers have home advantage against the Miami Dolphins.

Oakland Raiders at Houston Texans

It was all going so well for Oakland as they qualified for the postseason for the first time since 2002. But then they were rocked by the injury to star quarterback Derek Carr, who suffered a broken fibula and was ruled out indefinitely, and the odds on them winning the Super Bowl plummeted accordingly. In their last regular season game, Carr’s replacement Matt McGroin was hit by a shoulder injury, and they finished with rookie Connor Cook as QB. It cost them as they slumped to a 24-6 defeat against the Broncos, who were on a long losing streak and already eliminated. That caused them to slip from first to second in the AFC West as the Kansas City Chiefs won to leapfrog them at the death, so they go into the Wildcard Round after slipping from number two seed to number five and have to face the Texans, who finished 9-7 to win the AFC South and claim the number four seed despite having a worse record than the Raiders.

Without Carr, nobody is giving the Raiders much of a chance. They beat the Texans in week 11, but the teams are looking very different now. The Texans are 1.55 with Boyle Sport and that looks a good price, considering how depleted the Raiders are. The Texans’ quarterback situation is a bit uncertain too, as Tom Savage left Sunday’s game with a knock and Brock Osweiler came back in, so you might want to see who the starting quarterbacks are before placing your bet, but the Texans should cover a -3.5 spread at 10/11 with Bet365 if Cook starts. If they can’t beat a third string rookie quarterback, Houston fans will go ballistic.

Miami Dolphins at Pittsburgh Steelers

The Steelers are on a sensational seven-game winning streak and have been made third-favourites for the Super Bowl at 17/2 with Paddy Power. Despite that they only finished as third seed in the AFC and have to get through the Wildcard Round against the sixth-seeded team, the Dolphins, who finished 10-6 in the AFC East. The Steelers are on a roll and should be far too strong for Miami, who were crushed 35-14 by the New England Patriots in their last game. The Miami defence was run ragged and the offence was constantly under pressure, so the fans will not be full of optimism ahead of the trip to Pittsburgh.

Having said that, the Dolphins did beat the Steelers 30-15 in week 6, but a lot has changed since then and the Steelers have looked outstanding in their seven-match winning run. That is borne out in the odds, with the Dolphins huge outsiders at 7/2 with the likes of William Hill and Bet365, and Pittsburgh as low as 1/5 but best priced at 4/17 with 888 Sport and Unibet. The Steelers should win this one comfortably and that looks a good one for any accumulator bets. Injuries are looking good for the Steelers as Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell will play a postseason game together for the first time, while Miami’s defence is banged up and quarterback Ryan Tannehill – who put the Steelers to the sword in week 6 – is also injured. The spread on the Steelers is -9.5, a huge favouritism, and while they may not quite cover that they should win this one fairly comfortably.