Week 7 of the NFL 2025 season begins with the Thursday Night Football which has us focused on the AFC North as the current leaders of the division, Pittsburgh Steelers, head to divisional rivals Cincinnati Bengals.
The Bengals are looking like a side for whom next season will be the focus very soon but the Steelers are in place to push on and win the AFC North title for the first time since 2020 and victory here would only strengthen those claims.
Cincinnati Bengals
After starting the season positively with a pair of wins, the Cincinnati Bengals are now on a run of four straight losses with the catalyst for those defeats being the injury to Joe Burrow. It was always going to be a major blow for the Bengals when the toe injury to their elite quarterback occurred and while Cincinnati will have been hoping for others to step up and minimise that absence, that just hasn’t happened and another loss here will already have the Bengals leaning one eye towards next season.
To be fair, it hasn’t been all the offense that has been the problem here. Their defence hasn’t been able to stop anything in the last month and it was that department which they really needed to come together and assist the offense. Joe Flacco got things moving a little more at quarterback against Green Bay on Sunday but the Bengals were largely out of the game before a late rally made the score a bit closer. If the home side are to win here they need to protect Joe Flacco as you would imagine it will be a shootout if they come out on top.
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Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers have made a very strong start to their season and have the chance to go 5-1 for the year here if they can come away with a win. Their campaign includes a win in Ireland a couple of weeks ago but the one thing that can still be levelled at them is that they haven’t got a top class name on their list of victims yet, although to be fair to them they do have two wins over teams who have a winning record on the year which is definitely a strong form guide.
This is the first season under Aaron Rodgers at quarterback. It is a different Rodgers this season. He is utilising a lot of short passes and relying on the physicality of his receivers to pick up yards once they have the ball in hand and those players go up against the worst defence in the league in terms of restricting yards after the catch which bodes well. The other thing which bodes well for the Steelers here is the eyes of their pass rush should really light up against this weak Bengals’ offensive line.
Betting
I learnt a long time ago not to get involved in the match betting on the Thursday night game because they throw up some crazy results with the short week a real impact in them and we’ve already seen that this season so while I would expect the Pittsburgh Steelers to win this one, I’m not convinced that on the road they are worth backing at the prices. I still think they will win so the bet I’m going with revolves around them and comes in the from of the receiving yards of their tight end Darnell Washington where the line is 21.5 yards.
He has come alive a little more in the last two games which probably isn’t a surprise when you consider that the Steelers are without their second wide receiver in Calvin Austin III. He is set to miss this one so others are having to pick up the slack and Rodgers has been going to Washington more. He caught three passes for 20 yards in Dublin recently and then caught three more for 62 yards against Cleveland a week ago which included a 36 yard effort. If he catches one of them here then we are laughing but even if he doesn’t, Cincinnati are very weak against tight ends and look set to be without their star defensive end which won’t help much. Cincy are also poor at allowing yards after the catch so we might only need a couple of catches from the tight end to get to 22 yards but he could even get there with one. However many it takes I think he sees enough action to clear this line.
Tips
Back D.Washington – Over 21.5 receiving yards for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with William Hill
Back him here:
