The Pittsburgh Steelers and Indianapolis Colts will play on Saturday in Indianapolis in what is the most important game remaining on the Steelers’ schedule. The Colts opened as 2.5 point favorites over the Steelers, per VSiN. With both teams coming off disappointing losses, Vegas oddsmakers see this game being very close. The over/under opened at 39 points, up from a decades low 30 points in the Steelers-Patriots game last week. The over/under has since moved to 42.5 points.
Both teams sit at 7-6 and temporarily have possession of the sixth and seventh seeds in the tournament. There are currently six total teams that hold a 7-6 record, so all the tiebreakers will start to come in to play. The most important of those being division and conference records, records against common opponents, and head-to-head. The Steelers-Colts game will count towards all of those tiebreaker categories other than divisional record.
The Colts are the home team which is taken into account when setting the odds, so the 2.5 point line is more or less a toss up in the eyes of Vegas. The Steelers lost to the 2-10 New England Patriots 21-18 on Thursday Night Football, easily hitting the over. The Colts got blown out by the 6-6 Cincinnati Bengals by a score of 34-14 on Sunday Afternoon. Jake Browning was the quarterback for the Bengals on Sunday. While he has been around in the league for a while, it was just his third start. He threw for 275 yards and scored three total touchdowns on the Colts, including one rushing.
The Steelers currently have the sixth-fewest points allowed per game in the league with 19.2. The Colts allow the fourth-most points per game at 25.4. On offense, the Steelers have the fifth-fewest points per game with 16.2, and the Colts have the eighth-most points per game at 24.2. As far as point totals go, these teams have opposite issues. Vegas sees this resulting in a relatively high scoring game.
