NFL Sunday Night Football Betting: Kansas City Chiefs at Pittsburgh Steelers
The fourth Sunday of the NFL football season concludes with a matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday Night Football:
KANSAS CITY CHIEFS AT PITTSBURGH STEELERS:
While most of the media attention during the early part of the NFL season has focused on the performance of the New England Patriots without Tom Brady, the Kansas City Chiefs have gone 2-1 without star running back Jamaal Charles. Charles is expected to make his season debut here after suffering a torn ACL last year. The Steelers get their own star rusher back as well as running back Le’Veon Bell returns from suspension.
This should help Kansas City immeasurably since their running game has been nonexistent during Charles’ option. The Chiefs currently rank #21 in rushing offense putting up only 91.3 yards per game. They’ve also lost three fumbles this year which ties them with Tennessee for the ‘league lead’. This has forced quarterback Alex Smith to throw the ball more and to his credit he’s done a decent job. He’ll never be mistaken for Dan Fouts, but Smith is precisely the type of efficient, methodical and consistent quarterback Andy Reid wants running his offense. KC is ranked #7 in completion percentage.
Kansas City has been a very poor underdog of late, failing to cover five of their last six in that role. They’re 2-4 SU/ATS over the past three years in this price range (road dog of +3.5 to +7 points. Pittsburgh, meanwhile, has been very effective at home with a record of 8-2-1 ATS in their last 11. This game already had something of a ‘revenge’ subplot–Kansas City beat Pittsburgh 23-13 in Landry Jones’ first pro start last season. Jones threw a pair of interceptions in that game but Kansas City had little answer for the returning Le’Veon Bell who rushed for 121 yards.
The bigger motivation for Pittsburgh now is likely their pitiful performance at Philadelphia last weekend. The Eagles’ Carson Wentz continued to shine as his team controlled every phase of the game en route to a 34-3 thrashing. That was the Steelers’ worst loss in 27 years and for a franchise with this much ‘historical pride’ that’s just not acceptable. In 1989, the Steelers suffered back to back beatdowns losing 51-0 to Cleveland in the opening game and following that up with a 41-10 loss at Cincinnati.
Kansas City hasn’t won in Pittsburgh since 1986 and for some reason they’ve been awful on ‘Sunday Night Football’. In fact, as the NBC prime time game celebrates it’s 10th anniversary the Chiefs are still looking for their first Sunday Night Football win against a record of 0-6. In our view, it’s going to go to 0-7. Justin Brown is the Chiefs’ best pass rusher and he’s out here. Pittsburgh’s pass rush has looked suspect in the first two weeks of the season as well but with both teams not putting pressure on the quarterback it becomes a simple function of which team can do more damage. Clearly, Roethlisberger can exploit this liability in the Chiefs’ defense much more severely than Alex Smith can make the Steelers’ pay.
Tactical matchup favors Pittsburgh and coming off that embarrassment against Philadelphia last week we like the situation as well.
BET PITTSBURGH STEELERS -3.5 OVER KANSAS CITY CHIEFS