NFL Betting: Pittsburgh Steelers at Baltimore Colts

Added on Sep 08, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

Sunday’s Week 1 NFL betting board starts at the top with a classic divisional rivalry matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens. These teams played three times last year–including in the playoffs–with all three games being decided by a total of 13 points.

Pittsburgh Steelers at Baltimore Colts
September 11, 2011 10:00 AM Pacific

The teams split a pair of regular season games, with each winning by 3 points on the road before the Steelers won by 7 on their home field during the postseason. At first glance, the points look like the play in a traditionally competitive series. When it comes to betting on NFL football, however, it never hurts to be a contrarian. For that reason we’re going to lay the points with the home team.

There’s a technical situation involving the team that loses the Super Bowl that has us on the Colts in this game. In the last 11 seasons teams that lose the Super Bowl are 2-9 SU/0-11 ATS in their opening game of the following season. There’s a couple of things at work here–much of it is public perception that the team that lost the championship game is inherently superior. In the modern day NFL, however, that’s not really the case–the salary cap and free agency has made it impossible for good teams to ‘stockpile’ players. The Steelers still have a very good team but they’re getting older and that could be a serious issue on the defensive side of the ball. James Harrison is really the ‘straw that stirs the drink’ when it comes to the Steelers’ defense and he’s not back to 100% after off season back surgery. This is the type of injury that would have benefited greatly from him being able to utilize team rehab resources that were ‘off limits’ to him due to the lockout.

In our view, Baltimore has an excellent chance of reversing the decision in their playoff game from a year and and winning this game outright. We also think that the total on this game is somewhat low based on the defensive reputations of the two teams. We look for Ben Roethisberger and the improving Joe Flacco to put points on the board and for this game to exceed the posted total.

Bet Baltimore Colts -1′ over Pittsburgh Steelers
Bet Pittsburgh/Baltimore Over 36