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Week 11: Tennessee at Pittsburgh TNF NFL Betting Preview and Pick

Since the former Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee in 1997, the Titans and Pittsburgh Steelers have faced off just once in the playoffs – the divisional round following the 2002 season. How long ago was that? Current Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, a sure-fire future Hall of Famer, was still at Miami of Ohio. Shoot, the Cleveland Browns were even good that year.

It’s quite possible the Steelers and Titans do play in this winter’s playoffs, but first they meet up in the Steel City on Thursday night to kick off Week 11. Pittsburgh is a 7-point favorite on the NFL betting board.

As things stand today, Pittsburgh (7-2 SU, 5-4 ATS) would be the top-seeded team in the AFC playoffs and it has a comfortable lead in its AFC North division. The Patriots have the same record, but the Steelers hold the current tiebreaker of a better record inside the conference (5-1 to 4-1). The Steelers host the Patriots in Week 15, a game that gets bigger the closer we get.

The Steelers came out of their bye week on Sunday and were not sharp in a 20-17 escape at Indianapolis, Pittsburgh’s fourth straight win. The Colts are not a good team, especially on defense, but led 17-3 midway through the third quarter. Roethlisberger then threw TD passes to emerging rookie JuJu Smith-Schuster and Vance McDonald. A Big Ben to Antonio Brown 32-yard completion with under a minute left led to the winning field goal by Chris Boswell as time expired. The Colts were largely able to hold Le’Veon Bell in check as it took him 26 carries to reach 80 yards.

The Steelers simply don’t lose when Bell gets at least 25 carries.

There was one interesting statistic from that game. Smith-Schuster is just 20, while Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri, another future Hall of Famer, is 44. It marked the first game in NFL history that a player under 21 and one over 40 each scored at least one point.

Tennessee (6-3 SU, 3-5-1 ATS) is tied for first in the AFC South with Jacksonville, although the Titans currently hold the head-to-head tiebreaker there. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2008, which was also the year of their last division title. Tennessee is the NFL’s only first-place team with a negative point differential (minus-8). That’s because the Titans have won several close games but were crushed 57-14 in Houston on Oct. 1.

The Titans also bring a four-game winning streak into Thursday following a 24-20 home victory over Cincinnati to improve the team to 3-0 this year against the Steelers’ AFC North. DeMarco Murray scored the winning TD on a 7-yard pass from Marcus Mariota with 36 seconds to go. Murray also had two rushing scores as Tennessee had 180 yards on the ground against a good defense.

Pittsburgh last played Tennessee in November 2014 in Nashville, a 27-24 Steelers victory. Bell had 204 yards rushing and a score. None of the current key Titans on offense were with the team back then. The Steelers have covered five of their past six against teams with a winning record and will do so here.