NFL Football Betting: Pittsburgh Steelers at Oakland Raiders

Added on Sep 23, 2012 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

The ‘silver and black’ meets the ‘black and gold’. Were this the mid 1970′s this would have the makings of a classic battle between two of the NFL’s most feared franchises. Now, not so much. Pittsburgh may not be at the elite level of the Terry Bradshaw/Franco Harris era but they’re still a solid team. The same can’t be said about the Oakland Raiders, who haven’t been a contender in a number of years.

Pittsburgh Steelers at Oakland Raiders
September 23, 2012 1:25 PM Pacific

The Pittsburgh Steelers are definitely vulnerable right now. They’re without lead running back Matt Forte and have had a number of injuries on the defensive side of the ball as well. Despite that they’re 1-1 and will have a bye week that should allow a number of their nagging injuries to heal before their next game at home against Philadelphia.

Were the Steelers facing any other team here we might be more anxious to go against Pittsburgh but it’s hard to do anything with the Oakland Raiders who enter this game 0-2 for the first time since 2007. The late Al Davis is no doubt rolling over in his grave at this fact and perhaps even more so the struggles of the Oakland offense. The Raiders have sputtered all season, scoring only 27 points in two games this season. Carson Palmer was acquired in hopes to provide stability at the quarterback position but he’s not looked very comfortable in the West Coast offense. That has been compounded with the struggles of running back Darren McFadden who is averaging just 2.1 yards per carry.

The NFL betting line for this game opened Pittsburgh -5 and has been bet down as low as -3′. While the move is understandable in theory we just can’t recommend getting involved with Oakland–a team that an elite Steelers defense could shut down even with all of their injuries. At the same time, don’t want to lay more than a FG on the road in anything but the most advantageous situation. For that reason we’ll focus on the total–the Raiders’ defense hasn’t been too bad so this could be a low scoring affair. For that reason we’ll go Under the total.

Bet Pittsburgh/Oakland Under 45