Pittsburgh Steelers -1.5

It’s interesting to see the advanced stats and notice that Steelers aren’t as ‘bad’ offensively as the standard statistics indicate.  They rank 14^th overall actually.  The team protects the ball well, has an explosive run-game component with Jaylen Warren, and are pretty deep at the receiving skill positions.  The team has played a pretty tough schedule so far, facing elite defenses like CLE (twice), SF, and BAL.  Firing the O-coordinator this week, changing a bit of player utilization in the offensive game (more Warren and less Harris), and potentially a few additional adjustments and we should see a better offensive output here.  Going up against Cincy’s 22^nd ranked defense won’t hurt either.  At the very least, the effort will be there, as I’m sure Tomlin will have his guys ready to go.  On the other side, you have a deflated Cincy squad that just lost Burrow for the season.  At 5-5 the Bengals’ year is virtually over, so hard seeing max effort out of them in this spot.  Cincy is bottom-5 in the league in run-game efficiency and relying on a backup to carry them in this spot is going to be challenging.  Pittsburgh has the superior defense, better run game, and in my opinion, will be more motivated in this contest.  I love them in this spot. 

Good Luck