Steelers-Bills best bets: Can Buffalo make a statement on SNF?
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Our primetime best bets have been on an absolute heater and the timing couldn't be much better with the holidays just around the corner.
We've got a huge AFC tilt on Sunday night as the Steelers visit the Bills. Here's what we like:
Alex Kolodziej
Under 48
This number’s way too high for my liking – and that’s saying a lot because the Bills have been one of my favorite teams to bet over the total this season. Josh Allen worked the 49ers’ defense last weekend. Allen primarily picked apart the zone and wound up finishing with 375 yards and four touchdowns.
Sunday’s game against Pittsburgh could be tough sledding. The Steelers’ secondary ranks No. 1 in the NFL in DVOA pass defense and is in for a bounce-back game after dropping their first contest of the year to Alex Smith and Washington.
Pittsburgh’s offense deserves to be downgraded. The Steelers are no longer in the top half of the league in DVOA while the Bills have risen from No. 30 – where they were in Week 6 – to No. 16.
This is too many points for this matchup.
Alex Moretto
Diontae Johnson over 6.5 receptions (+120)
Ben Roethlisberger is going to be icing his elbows late into Monday morning because the Steelers are going to have to throw early and often. Buffalo's run defense has been among the worst units in the NFL this season, but we have to look beyond the numbers here.
Tremaine Edmunds has been excellent the past couple weeks after finally getting back to full health, and fellow linebacker Matt Milano finally returned last week against the 49ers. With these two on the field, this is an above-average group that can contain an anemic Pittsburgh rushing attack, with or without James Conner.
The Bills are content giving up yards in small chunks on defense, keeping everything in front of them. We can expect a lot of intermediate passes in a game where Roethlisberger is going to throw a ton, and that's Diontae Johnson's bread and butter. The 24-year-old's averaging 7.5 air yards per target this season, with Chase Claypool (12.9) as the deep threat and Juju Smith-Schuster (5.4) as the underneath guy.
Johnson has hoarded targets since recovering from the pair of nagging injuries that slowed him earlier in the season. He's got at least 10 targets in each of the last five games - 62 total - and 40 receptions over that span. Johnson's gone over this number in each of the last three games and we're getting a great price on him to do so again in a game where he should be awfully busy.
C Jackson Cowart
Bills -2
Oddsmakers are finally coming around on Buffalo, one of the more underappreciated teams in the league despite a 9-3 record and four-game ATS win streak.
The club's offense has shown elite upside when Allen is dealing, as he was last week during a 375-yard, four-touchdown performance in prime time against the 49ers. And the Bills' defense, while oft-criticized, has actually been one of the more consistently average units in the league.
The same can't be said for the Steelers' offense, which ranks 25th in yards per play and has been responsible for four or more touchdowns just three times this year. The way to beat Buffalo is a track meet, not a slugfest, and lately, Pittsburgh hasn't shown its capable of that task.