October 26, 2011

Week 7: Pittsburgh Steelers at Arizona Cardinals

PITTSBURGH STEELERS @ ARIZONA CARDINALS

Vegas Line: Cardinals + 4

Rob’s Line: Cardinals + 4.5

This rematch of Super Bowl XLIII promises nothing of the drama of that most classic of Super Sunday finishes and both teams enter proceedings on not very much of a high, despite Pittsburgh sitting at 4-2 and on the back of two consecutive wins at home, the first where they gave everything against Tennessee and last week where the expected drop off occured, but they still had too much in the end for Jacksonville.
However, it’s that second half drop off in particular that will concern them the most, being outscored as they were 10-0 in the second half by the Jaguars and this in a game where running back Rashard Mendenhall rushed for 146 yards.
Pittsburgh’s inconsistency though, is mirrored somewhat by Arizona, although their 1-4 record tells a very different story. One week after losing 31-27 in New York to the Giants in Week 4, a game they really should’ve come away from with the W, they played abysmally in Minneapolis and had already surrendered the game to Adrian Peterson by the end of the first quarter. Their bye last week following that capitulation undoubtedly came at a a good time and they welcome a perceived fatigued Steelers. That may appear to be the case, but as I’ve written previously this season, the Steelers are a dangerous animal when written off and they can turn on the performance they produced to overwhelm Tennessee at a moment’s notice. In addition, if I did dare to mention earlier that these teams are similar, perhaps, in inconsistency, one huge advantage the Steelers have over the Cardinals is at the quarterback position.
Larry Fitzgerald petitioned for the front office to sign Kevin Kolb away from the Eagles post-lockout and his capture went a long way to Fitzgerald committing his future to Arizona for what should prove to be the rest of his career. However, Kolb hasn’t come as advertised…or, should I say, as well advertised as he was in some quarters because there’s voices from many other quarters out there who questioned Kolb’s abilities before free agency even began in late July.
His completion percentage of 58.7 allied to 5 touchdowns and 6 interceptions hardly breeds confidence among the Arizona faithful, but there are mitigating circumstances, namely the lockout, no offseason to speak of, no training camp and limited practice time. And with Fitzgerald being the Cards’ lone blue chip receiving threat, defenses have been able to gang up on him and his frustrations were voiced this week, but it was nothing out of the ordinary and I think that by next season he and Kolb will be a more potent combination.
Helping them along the way would be a healthy Chris ‘Beanie’ Wells as at least him running with the ball effectively would mean keeping defenses semi-honest and not smothering Fitzgerald straight from the line of scrimmage.
If Kolb is suffering from a dearth of receiving options, then Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger has no such issues and consider this when he goes through his reads in the pocket: Mike Wallace, Hines Ward, Antonio Brown, Heath Miller and Emmanuel Sanders. Including Mendenhall amongst those, quite how the Steelers managed only 70 yards in the second half against Jacksonville last week is baffling.
The Cardinals rank 20th in the league against both the run and the pass and considering that Pittsburgh ranks No. 1 against the pass, thus going a long way to negating the Kolb to Fitzgerald conduit, it’s extremely difficult to defy logic here and pick Arizona, even with a start on the handicap. Yes, it’s possible that the Steelers may well start as lethargically as they finished last week, but I honestly don’t see that happening and I can only side with Pittsburgh to cover the spread.

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