With or without Matthew Stafford, the Lions were going to have some major issues with the champs 3-4 defense which made life long for the Chargers last week. Look for Pittsburgh to feed Rashard Mendenhall a lot, and for Big Ben to have a big day. A cakewalk for the Steelers, who looked like the team that won the Super Bowl last week vs SD. The Steelers should be able to pressure immobile quarterback Daunte Culpepper, and look for a couple of short fields for the Steelers after turnovers.
One thing the Steelers have to do is make sure they don’t commit turnovers of their own. The Lions are not talented enough to put 80-yard drives together against the Steelers D, so about the only way they are going to score is via turnovers and Steelers mistakes. The Steelers last week were well ahead of the Chargers before they made some mistakes in the fourth quarter.
Detroit will try to come out with early emotion, and the Steelers should be able to simply counter that and impose their will early and often. To lose to the Lions would be a MAJOR setback for the black and gold, an unless a lot of things go wrong, it won’t happen.
Pittsburgh 34 Detroit 17
DrGeorge
October 11, 2009 at 11:34 am
Given the immense difference in talent between these teams, logic says the spread should be much worse than 17 points and the Lions should score less than 10 points. However, logic does not win football games. Given the recent propensity of the Steelers defense to play Santa Claus in the 4th quarter and the tendency of the offense to stall in the red zone, a 17 point differential against one of the worst teams in the NFL is probably the illogical best we can hope for. If the spread is tighter or (God forbid!) we find a way to lose this one, we can … oh, let’s not even think about that scenario. Steeler fans are depressed enough as it is.