NFL Betting: Pittsburgh Steelers at Cincinnati Bengals

A busy weekend of NFL football betting action concludes on Monday Night with an important AFC North battle between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals. Both teams lost their opening game. In fact, that’s been typical of a division that may be down this year. After the second week of the season the Baltimore Ravens lead the divisional race with a 1-1 record and they’ve been far from impressive. The Bengals opened their season with an uneven effort against the Bears in Chicago–they have to be happy with the way they played for much of the contest before a late game collapse that cost them the victory in a 24-21 loss. The game pushed against the three point spread. Pittsburgh looked awful–and particularly on offense–in their opening game loss to the Tennessee Titans.

The Cincinnati Bengals are the personification of the word ‘solid’. They don’t have many flashy players but their roster is competent from top to bottom. Andy Dalton is a serviceable NFL quarterback and wide receiver AJ Green is a star. Cincinnati is a team that plays ‘within itself’ and doesn’t make many mistakes which is the kind of team that can cash a lot of tickets and particularly as an underdog. Of course their ability to cover a pointspread as a favorite is the issue here. The Bengals don’t beat themselves and that will likely be enough to get the win over a Pittsburgh Steelers team that may be on a bit of a decline.

After going 12-4 in 2011 the Steelers regressed to 8-8 in 2012 and there is some concern in the ‘Steel City’ that this iteration of the team has reached the end of the line. Many of their star players are getting older–particularly on the defensive side of the ball. On offense there is growing trepidation that Ben Roethlisberger doesn’t have enough talent around him to win games consistently. The Steelers’ defense was solid last year but are aging. On offense the Steelers lack a solid starting running back and are hoping that a revamped–and young–offensive line will be able to keep ‘Big Ben’ upright. The loss of starting center Maurkice Pouncey in the opening game was a huge blow.

Aware that Cincinnati is on a 3-7 ATS run against AFC North opponents but no interest in the Steelers at this point.

BET CINCINNATI BENGALS -6′ OVER PITTSBURGH STEELERS