TLF,
With all due respect to Uncle Vito and his supporters, I much prefer your analysis and reasoning supporting the Over, and have already played it, not only "straight" (buying down to 58 at -120 odds, but also teasing it down to 51 in a 3 team, 7.5 point teaser at +140 odds (at Bet US). I plan to do a separate post later today with those two plays.
I especially like your comment about Ben's (and Pitt's) home/away splits.... while he and Steelers traditionally (during the Big Ben/Tomlin era) have been VERY TOUGH to beat at home, they have been just average on the road, especially against good teams, and despite moving the ball almost at will "between the 20s" in their less than impressive win the week before at KC, they could not even "punch it in" once for a TD - pathetic. In fact, Steelers are a "pedestrian" 2-4 in road playoff games since 2010, including their Super Bowl loss to GB (on a neutral field/Texas Stadium) at end of the 2010-11 season, scoring just 18 points in each of their two most recent road playoff wins (TY at KC and LY at Cincy), while in sharp contrast, they are 3-1 in home playoff games during that same 7 year period.
Moreover, I'm not all that impressed with Mike Tomlin as a coach, and he showed his mediocrity with the HORRIBLE defensive strategy that Pitt employed against NE (3 man rush which put next to ZERO pressure on Brady and gave him "all day" to find his receivers, especially his two primary receivers, Edelman and Hogan) combined with "soft" zone coverage, which Brady typically "eats for breakfast," in contrast to the "bump and run" tight man coverage that Houston successfully deployed the week before against Brady and NE - all part of the reason that I "loaded up" on the NE Pats on Sunday in their easy win over the road-challenged Steelers.
But it won't be nearly so easy for Brady and NE against Atlanta, with Ryan and his receiving corps an equal match to Brady and his, and Atlanta head coach Dan Quinn, coaching in his third Super Bowl (his first two as DC for Seattle) being nobody's fool, and certainly (unlike Tomlin) noticing the difference between defensive strategies that have worked well against Brady and those that have failed miserably (like Pitt's "soft zone" combined with a weak pass rush, on Sunday). So I'm going to reserve judgment for now as far as which side to play, and won't go "hog wild" with the Over, rather preferring to make my above mentioned side/total teaser my top play so far on this game.
Great Owl