NFL Preseason Betting: New York Giants at Pittsburgh Steelers

NFL preseason action continues this week with a Saturday night game between the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers at Heinz Field in the ‘Steel City’. Both teams have been among the perennial contenders in pro football over the last decade but both are coming off of disappointing seasons in which they failed to make the playoffs. As is usually the case in these preseason affairs it is unlikely that the teams’ star quarterbacks–Eli Manning for the Giants and Ben Roethlisberger for the Steelers–will see much playing time. For that reason it is important to know how each team plans to use their starters and, more importantly, how they plan to use their reserves.

The Giants’ head coach Tom Coughlin has made abundantly clear that he doesn’t plan to leave his starters–particularly quarterback Manning–in for very long. The word out of the New York camp is that the starters will be in for ’12 to 15 plays’. The Giants do have two experienced backup quarterbacks on the roster in David Carr and former Indianapolis Colts’ reserve Curtis Painter along with rookie Ryan Nassib out of Syracuse. Most likely Nassib and Painter will see most of the second half action. Injuries will sideline starters Justin Tuck (DE) and Hakeem Nicks (WR) but they wouldn’t have played much anyway.

Pittsburgh will likely use the same type of rotation with Ben Roethlisberger and the first unit out of the game by the end of the first quarter. Behind Roethlisberger the Steelers have a backup with NFL starting experience in Bruce Gradkowski, though the second half will probably belong primarily to #3 quarterback John Parker Wilson with rookie Landry Jones out of Oklahoma doing mop up work. Worth noting that the Steelers have come into the preseason focused during the tenure of head coach Mike Tomlin–during the Tomlin regime Pittsburgh is 19-6 SU in preseason action. For that reason we’ll look for Pittsburgh to win and cover in a relatively low scoring game. Neither team is deep with playmakers and with the starting unit given an early night there’s no reason to expect much in the way of offensive fireworks in the second half.

BET PITTSBURGH STEELERS -2′ OVER NY GIANTS
BET PITTSBURGH/NY GIANTS UNDER 36