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Pittsburgh Steelers at Cincinnati Bengals NFL Odds & Predictions

Written by Jimmy Boyd on October 17, 2008

The Cincinnati Bengals are off to a horrid 0-6 start and it figures to be more bad news with the 4-1 Pittsburgh Steelers to coming to town this week. At least odds makers think so. The books have set the NFL odds in favor of Pittsburgh, installing the Steelers as 9.5-point favorites with the total set at 35.

A last minute road win sent Mike Tomlin’s Steelers into a bye week riding high and now the banged up team has had a chance to regain some health.

The Steelers are hoping to have three key starters back when they go after their eighth straight win at Paul Brown Stadium on Sunday.

Pittsburgh went to Jacksonville on October 5th missing star running back Willie Parker and defensive linemen Casey Hampton and Brett Keisel, but escaped with a five-point win to take a two-game lead in the AFC North Division.

QB Big Ben Roethlisberger threw for 309 yards and three touchdowns despite playing with a partially separated shoulder. The bye week will have treated the Roethlisberger well.

Pittsburgh will get Keisel back and four-time Pro Bolwer Hampton could be ready to go as well. The bye week also gave kicker Jeff Reed a chance a chance to rest his groin.

It would be a big lift if Parker is ready to go after missing two games with a MCL sprain. He was supposed to be ready this week but re-aggravated the injury in practice and is now listed as questionable.

If Parker does sit out, the Bengals will not miss him one bit. He’s averaging 130.3 yards per game on the ground in three regular season game at Cincinnati in his career. And as you might have guessed, all three of those games were Steeler victories.

Including the postseason, Pittsburgh has rattled off seven straight at Cincy. If you think Pittsburgh’s dominance will continue, bet the Steelers at -9.5 at Bookmaker and receive a 20% cash bonus.

Former Steelers assistant, and now Bengals head man, Marvin Lewis, really wants to end that streak, but the question is how badly his team wants it.

The Bengals are in desperate need of a win and they’ll take it anyway they can get it. Sadly, this is not unfamiliar territory for the Bengals which are winless for the third time after six games this decade. The Bengals hope they aren’t on pace for their worst start in franchise history when they went 0-10 to start the 1993 season.

This puts things in perspective. Since 1991, a team has opened the season with six consecutive losses 21 times. The Bengals have six of those while no other team in the NFL has more than two.

Unfortunately, the Bengals will be without star QB Carson Palmer who is dealing with an inflamed elbow. That means backup Ryan Fitzpatrick will get the nod again and hopefully his third start will be better than his first two.

Fitzpatrick has completed 60.3 percent of his passes for an average of 154 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions. On September 28th, Fitzpatrick turned the ball over four times against the Browns, but he cleaned things up a little bit more against the Jets, only fumbling once and not getting picked off.

A major turnaround for the Fitzpatrick will not be easy this week as Pittsburgh brings the league’s second-ranked total defense to town. This unit is allowing only 231.6 yards per game and has sacked opposing QB’s 18 times thus far.

The Bengals are last in the league in total offense but the Steelers rank just 26th so it’s not like they have been rolling up big yards on opponents.

The Steelers have lost their last two games following a bye week so perhaps they’ll come out sluggish again here. Bet the Bengals at +9.5 at Bookmaker if you think that will be the case.

Make sure you are doing your NFL betting with a handicapper who does his research.

Editor’s Note: Jimmy Boyd’s 5* NFL Blowout of the Month is going this Sunday in his week 7 NFL picks lineup.

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