Its a defending AFC Champ vs. a division foe with a new starting QB here and a line to reflect that Cincinnati -6.5. We do have the completely unknown commodity in Pittsburgh because with Tribusky at starter we don’t know what we will see from this offense. He or Pickett does bring an ability to scramble but its a lot of ground to cover as the Steelers could only muster 10 points in both meetings last year which the Bengals put up 41 and 24. Burrow has a passer rating of 97.4 with 575 yards, 5 touchdowns and 2 interceptions in 3 games versus the Steelers in his career.
What is expected is that since the Bengals went to the Super Bowl last year the best minds in football analyzed their offense and defenses are expected to try to copy what the Rams did in basically trying to drop 8 defenders and rush 3. The Steelers may have the front 7 in the 3-4 defense to apply pressure with the d-tackles and any combination of a zone blitz coming from where ever they chose to bring pressure from. The same kind of adjustment process that the Chiefs went through after Tampa Bay devised a defense that held them to struggle for 9 points in the Super Bowl is what adjustments rival coaching staffs plan to make the Bengals do. What you need to know is that Tomlin is 75% ATS in the division as an under dog. The Bengals are my hometown CBS broadcast and while I do like the Bengals definitely to win here covering is one of those things that sometimes happens or it doesn’t completely independent of who wins. We’ll see real quick if Pittsburgh has enough on the offense to compete in the AFC, this is a game where even though I’m taking the Bengals I wouldn’t be surprised zero if Pittsburgh shows up in this game and covers and/or wins outright, that being said while most of history says this should be a Steelers cover…
My prediction 27-20 Bengals and yea that’s a fan pick knowing that in this division getting out of week 1 with a win is going to be a lot harder than the spread would suggest, however sometimes the team that wins covers and without seeing the Steelers offense as the unit will be this year we can only wait and see how they perform.