Steelers-Bengals best bets: Is this a get-right spot for Pittsburgh's offense?
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Despite back-to-back losses and a string of underwhelming performances, bettors are all over the Steelers ahead of their trip to Cincinnati.
Pittsburgh opened as 12-point favorites and have been bet up significantly, with the Bengals receiving little love. Here's how we're approaching the game:
Alex Moretto
Bengals +14.5 (-110)
It's not pretty, folks. This is one of those hope-and-pray wagers, but the line has climbed high enough to the point where I simply have to bet it.
Ryan Finley might be the worst quarterback ever and this will be a strong candidate for the worst Monday Night Football game of the season, no doubt. But it's just not smart to lay 14.5 points with a Steelers team stuck in mud offensively.
Admittedly, betting on Finley and a pretty pathetic Bengals team isn't, either. That being said, the Steelers have absolutely nothing going in terms of a running game and Ben Roethlisberger is visibly laboring with every throw. He can't drive the ball down the field and he's got zero mobility. Maybe that's not a huge issue against a non-existent Bengals pass rush, but Pittsburgh will still need to score a fair bit to cover this big number.
There's no way I can leave this many points on the board in an ugly divisional game in December. The under warrants a strong look as well, but I'm not betting the under on a total of 40 in an NFL game in 2020. Hard pass.
Chase Claypool over 39.5 receiving yards (-115)
The Steelers will be hoping this is a get-right game for their offense, so I'm expecting them to try and get Claypool heavily involved again.
The best games for Pittsburgh's offense this season came when the dynamic rookie was making plays downfield. The Steelers have scored 98 points in the three games this season where Claypool's been targeted at least 10 times.
This is a great spot to get him going again - against a miserable Cincinnati secondary that Claypool burned for 56 yards and two scores in the first meeting.
C Jackson Cowart
Under 40 (-110)
We know two things for certain about this matchup: the Steelers' defense is great, and the Bengals' offense is not.
Pittsburgh ranks No. 1 in defensive DVOA and held the Bengals to 10 points in Week 10 - when Joe Burrow was still running the show. With him sidelined, Cincinnati has scored a combined 40 points in the last four weeks, including back-to-back games with seven points scored.
The team total for the Bengals (12.5) is too prone to a fluky over, but the Steelers' offense has sputtered in recent weeks and doesn't scare me enough to stay away from the game under. Neither does the low total - games with a total of 40 or below are 19-8-1 to the under since 2019.
Ryan Finley over 1.5 interceptions (+150)
I'm almost afraid to watch Monday's game because of how ugly it could get for Finley. The Bengals' second-year quarterback will be making his first start this year after playing in spots during the season. When he saw the field, it wasn't pretty - he threw an interception in two of his three appearances despite playing a combined 26 snaps in those two games.
In fact, Finley's interception rate (10.5%) would easily be the highest in the league this year if he qualified for the leaderboard. As it sits now, he's behind only Kendall Hinton - a wide receiver - and Robert Griffin III, having thrown two picks in just 19 attempts. That's not great company, to say the least.
The Steelers' defense leads the NFL with 17 interceptions this year and has multiple picks in five games this season. Those games all featured better quarterbacks than Finley, who could be in for a career-worst outing on Monday.