Cincinnati at Pittsburgh (11/20/2008)

I am undecided on this game but what concerns me the most is how anyone thinks Cincinnati will score 17 points against a PITTBURGH DEFENSE that allows just 15 points a game. In their losses at home this year to the COLTS and GIANTS they gave up 24 and 21 points respectively...but we can all agree CINCI's offense is not even close to these two teams.

Ryan Fitzpatrick has yet to throw TD on the road and I think that task gets a little harder on the road in front of a hostile crowd in PITTSBURGH. PITT’s def allows just 67 rushing ypg which means they will need to throw the ball. Here comes another problem...Cinci has allowed a league leading 38 sacks and last week against Philly Fitzpatrick was sacked 8 times. When Pittsburgh and Cincinnati played earlier this year Fitzpatrick was sacked 7 times. I don't see the pressure letting up tonight...we can probably expect to see a ton of pressure and 4-5 sacks.

So, now the question becomes how many points can the Steelers put up...Well, we all now how much the Steelers love to play hard nosed, grind it out football....run, run, run, pass. I don't expect high scoring game and everyone seems to be on the OVER, but if Cinci can't get into the endzone and are limited to FG's then Pittsburgh needs to put up at least 25 points in order to cover. IMO Cinci doesn't score more than 13 points to night and would be lucky to find the endzone one time. Pittsburgh runs the ball scores a couple TD and hits a few FG's and gets a very close cover.

 My hope would be that the total gets driven up to 36 before kick off and the line moves to 10 and I can buy it down to 9.5. I’ll post my final play later in the day as the line and number move.

GLA