The final match of the latest NFL Sunday sees the Pittsburgh Steelers hosting the Seattle Seahawks in a battle of two teams who have shown plenty of frailties this season when they meet in the Sunday Night Football at Heinz Field.
These two teams have both started with 2-3 records and have had injuries to deal with in getting there but the Steelers will be feeling positive after a win last week, unlike the Seahawks who are licking a few wounds right now.
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers have bookended their opening five games with victories with three defeats in between them. Those losses weren’t the worst defeats you’ll find with the Green Bay Packers looking very good and at the time the Las Vegas Raiders didn’t look too bad, although that was before everything kicked off with Jon Gruden. Even the one to the Cincinnati Bengals wasn’t terrible. Their win over the Buffalo Bills in the first week highlights what they can do.
They had a number of defensive injuries at the start of the season but it is no surprise that as they began to return last week they got back to winning ways. With the defence likely to stabilise over the coming weeks the onus is now on the offense to continue to deliver the goods. That will bring more attention onto Ben Roethlisberger than there has been so far this term and it will be interesting to see if a supporting defence inspires the best from the veteran.
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Seattle Seahawks
The defeat to the Los Angeles Rams was one thing for the Seattle Seahawks last week but the one thing they didn’t need was the injury to Russell Wilson which is going to keep him out for a few weeks. I don’t think Geno Smith is as bad as he was made out to be with the New York Jets but to say he is a comedown from Wilson would be an understatement. To be fair to Smith, there aren’t many quarterbacks in history who wouldn’t be a comedown on Wilson.
The big issue for the Seahawks is because of their insanely poor defence, it was only the mastery of Wilson that was keeping them competitive this season and it is a lot to ask for Smith to carry that defence even allowing for the fact that he has some decent receiving options to pass it to. Either that defence has to start stepping up or Smith is going to have to win a shootout against a defence, and a pass rush in particular, which is gaining traction with each play.
Betting
I find it hard to believe this injury hit Seattle Seahawks can go to Pittsburgh Steelers in primetime and stay particularly close to them. You would always give the Seahawks a chance when Russell Wilson was suited up but Geno Smith is a lot less mobile than the man he is replacing and he might be a sitting target for this Pittsburgh pass rush which is beginning to warm up nicely for them. I think Pittsburgh can win this with their defence if they need to but it would be a poor state of affairs if even without a couple of receivers Big Ben can’t feast on this Seattle defence.
He might be missing the likes of Juju Schuster-Smith which isn’t ideal but there are still enough targets for Roethlisberger to find and while there are signs that he is beyond his peak and coming to the twilight of his career, the great players always get inspired by the primetime occasions. Whatever Big Ben does here I expect Seattle to struggle a little on offense and if that happens Pittsburgh should have more than enough to cover a 4.5 handicap.
Tips
Back Pittsburgh Steelers (-4.5) to beat Seattle Seahawks for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfair
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