[kyro]

I didn't see this post at first. I'll take a few and respond

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I really fail to see why you think Pittsburgh is underrated. They've been touted as being the "3rd best AFC team" all season.

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You're right. I take that part back.

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The Steelers are 2-2 on the road against teams with a combined record of 13-19, one of which was week 1 in Cleveland in a game that was basically handed to them on a silver platter. With the condition of the Browns in week 1, you could replace the Steelers with ANY team in the league the Browns would have lost. Cincy...come on.

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The Steelers have been a complete Jekyll and Hyde team on the road, no doubt. I won't argue this. But....

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At home Pittsburgh's opponents have a combined record of 14-18. They beat up on a Buffalo team that started the year 1-4 and have just recently turned it around but were playing awful to start the year. San Fran is 2-6. Seattle is exactly what their record shows, a .500 mediocre team that looks different every week. And finally last nite against Baltimore. Baltimore is [censored] awful, 4 turnovers in the first quarter?? Pittsburgh's average starting field position during the first half was the 50 yard line.

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At home they've been spectacular. How do we know Buffalo and Cleveland are much improved? Cleveland won in Week 2 and Buffalo had a 1 pt loss to Denver in Week 1, a blowout against NE in Week 3, and is since 4-1, but there's nothing to suggest that they underperformed drastically when they played the Steelers from where they are now. It's possible Pittsburgh just played great against them.

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So overall Pittsburgh is 6-2 against teams with a combined record of 27-37, and their 1st 2 wins of the year came against teams who have shown drastic improvement since the first 2 weeks of the season.

On the other side of the ball Cleveland is one of the hottest teams in the league since week 2. The only better offenses right now are NE, IND, and DAL. The Browns O-Line has been perfect, allowing only 7 sacks in the last 7 games. The Browns gave the Pats the best fight they had all year before IND, including the Pats only scoreless quarter all season before this week. Remember CLE had the ball with time left and only down by 10 before a fumble-6 gave the pats a miracle spread cover.

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Pittsburgh is blowing teams out. Cleveland is not. Just look at common games. You talk about how Seattle isn't very impressive, and Baltimore sucks, and Cinci is awful (they're not by the way).

Pitt beat Seattle by 21, Cleveland by 3 (both at home)
Pitt beat Baltimore by 31, Cleveland by 14 (both at home)
Pitt beat Cinci by 11, Cleveland by 6 (Clev at home, Pitt on road)

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A final note. Cleveland wants this game...bad. The Steelers have been a pain in their ass since returning to the league, not to mention that its been their biggest rivalry for years. Cleveland embarrassed themselves in week 1 and now have something to prove.

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Please go up to James Farrior and tell him that Cleveland wants this game. I'm sure he'll be happy to take it easy on them.

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The Steelers are getting 10 points in a rivalry/division game against a 5-3 team that has a score to settle with them? Tons of value in CLE +10.

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Stop looking at records. Those are, for the most part, meaningless. Watch me manipulate stats.

Pittsburgh has a +12.75 relative margin of victory.
Cleveland has a +0.25 relative margin of victory.
Pittsburgh is scoring 1.199 times what their opponents are giving up and allowing .601 times what their opponents are scoring.
Cleveland is scoring 1.348 times what their opponents are giving up and allowing 1.321 times what their opponents are scoring.

Simple math, on a neutral field you could expect the score to be something like 33-17. Factor in Pitt's homefield advantage, and voila.

Or, we could look at DVOA, which is probably a better representation of a team's skill, and it has Pitt as about 6.5 points better than Cleveland. Given the fact Pitt is playing far better at home than away (more than the 3 points you'd generally give to a home team), I'd say Pitt -9.5 has plenty of value.