Week 12 in the NFL wraps up tonight with the Colts and Steelers on Monday Night Football! Indy will host Pittsburgh and is favored by 2.5 points while the over/under is set at 39.5 points.
The Teams
For the Steelers, it’s been an unusually bumpy ride this season. The team is 3-7 coming into tonight and will most likely finish with a losing record for the first time in Mike Tomlin’s tenure as a coach. Life after Ben Roethlisberger hasn’t looked as smooth as fans would have hoped, but rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett is making improvements each week. Last Sunday, he played arguably his best game yet against Cincinatti, going 25/42 for 265 yards, a touchdown and no turnovers. Tonight, Pickett will have to be on his game against a solid Colts defence that won’t give the offence anything easy, as will Najee Harris. When Harris is playing well, Pittsburgh’s offence is a much better unit. The second year running back is trending up too, running for 90+ yards in each of his last two games.
Like Pittsburgh, it’s also been a bit of a disappointment in Indianapolis this season. The Colts are 4-6-1 and in desperate need of a string of wins if they have any playoff aspirations at all. Jonathan Taylor’s injury certainly didn’t help the team, but the performance from everyone involved with the Colts has been underwhelming. Tonight, they may not be able to rely on Taylor as much as they’d like with Pittsburgh’s weak spot on defence being the pass game.
If Taylor is being bottled up, it’ll be up to Matt Ryan to lead the Colts to a victory before another primetime game next week against the Cowboys. He’s a former MVP and was definitely a great player in the prime of his career, but it’s clear that Ryan is not the same quarterback he used to be. With that being said, he may not have to be the best version of himself to lead his team to a win tonight.
Colts and Steelers – The Pick
In this primetime game between two storied franchises, we don’t expect a ton of offence tonight. In the end though, the Colts may be just a little more dangerous with the ball, so we’ll take them to cover the 2.5-point spread.
Indianapolis -2.5
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