On the other side the Chargers have had a brutal schedule with no easy wins. They already played the Broncos twice, Baltimore, New Orleans, Atlanta, and on the road against an under rated Tampa team. I think they finally get a game in their own building with against a team playing with too much confidence. Andy Dalton has tossed 9 TD and 0 INT's in his last three games, but a closer look at those games and he faced some bad defenses. I'm not just talking about against the pass which was 32nd, 30th, and 13th, but also against the run meaning Benjarvis Green-Ellis has helped with balanced as they have faced run defenses ranked 24th, 28th, and 22nd. Now on the road against the Chargers will be a different challenge. Although the Chargers are ranked 22nd against the pass they have faced some really good QB's already, and their run defense is ranked 6th against the run. That means the Chargers can at least take one aspect of the Bengals offense away making them one dimensional. The Bengals rushing offense is not that good to begin with so I look for the Chargers to really concentrate on stopping the pass.
On the other side of the ball Phillip Rivers and the Chargers have been solid at times, but the biggest issue has been the turnovers. Well the Bengals defense is 29th in takeaways on the road and have allowed a 117 QB rating over the last three games alone. They also struggle against the run allowing 4.9 ypc in their last 3 and 4.6 ypc on the road this year. They're ranked 23rd against the run and that's good news for the Chargers who should have success and balance offensively. Chargers will have more success on third downs where they are ranked 13th overall and convert 41.7% at home while the Bengals are 27th and are only converting 28.5% on the road. When they face defense that can shut down their run they find it very difficult to convert because they go into a lot of 3rd and longs.
The Steelers had 8 turnovers last week and they still nearly won the game. I think people are over reacting especially on the line here. No Big Ben is unfortunate but look for Charlie Batch to rebound and run a very conservative game plan with lots of running. Baltimore defense is enjoying a resurgence right now but I can't help but forget how they looked at times this year and they are 9th in run defense allowing 4.0 ypc which is nothing special.
The Steelers still possess the #1 defense and these two teams know each other extremely well it would be hard to see a blow out here. The last 10 match ups have all been decided by a TD or less with the exception of 2 games one which was a win by the Steelers by 9 and another by 28. The under dog is 7-3-2 ATS in the last 12 meetings and Pitt was actually +109 total yards in their match up just a few weeks ago at home when they lost by 3 points with Byron Leftwhich as the QB. I don't see Batch as that much of a downgrade to Lefwhich and I expect Johnathan Dwyer tto have a huge game he rushed for 55 yards on just 12 carries last time. They need to hand the ball off to him 20+ times to win this game.
