Pittsburgh Steelers (7-4-1) at Oakland Raiders (2-10)

I’ve mentioned this a couple times this season already, but the Steelers historically come out flat on the road as big favorites against a non-divisional opponent. We’ve already seen the Steelers lose in Denver and almost lose in Jacksonville this season, but this actually dates back years. Since Mike Tomlin took over as head coach in 2007, the Steelers are 7-20 ATS as non-divisional road favorites of more than a field goal and they are 5-16 ATS as road favorites of more than 4.5 since Ben Roethlisberger’s rookie year in 2004.

We lost some line value in this game in the past week, with the Steelers going from 12.5-point favorites on the early line down to 10-point favorites this week, as a result of the Raiders playing the Chiefs close, the Steelers losing to the Chargers at home, and heavy sharp action on the Raiders this week, but we’re still getting enough points to play with for Oakland to be worth a bet, especially with feature back James Conner out for the Steelers.

The Raiders obviously have issues, but I have this line calculated at Pittsburgh -7, even before taking into account their struggles in this spot historically. Making this an even tougher spot for the Steelers is the fact that they have New England after this game, so the Steelers almost definitely aren’t going to be fully focused on the Raiders this week. I expect them to come out flat and maybe even let the Raiders take a halftime lead before eventually pulling out a relatively close victory in the second half. The Raiders are worth a small bet as long as this line is double digits.

Pittsburgh Steelers 23 Oakland Raiders 17

Pick against the spread: Oakland +10

Confidence: Medium