As we move on in the Week 6 of the NFL 2015-16 Regular season we see 2 teams playing this Sunday the 18th of October that have both won their last game and seek to continue winning as the Cardinals of Arizona 4-1 (NFC West) on the road playing the Steelers of Pittsburgh 3-2 (AFC North) with the game being played at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with the kick-off scheduled for 1:05 PM ET and seen on FOX TV.
Actually this game is a Super Bowl XLIII rematch as both teams have big wins last weekend, but suffered losses the previous weekend. The opening gambling odds for those that Bet on NFL at SBG have the Cardinals favored in the game at -3 -120 with the Over/under for the game t 44 and -165 on the Money Line, while the underdog Steelers are at +3 EV and +145 on the Money Line. Presently the Cardinals seek a win to extend their lead in the NFC West, as the Steelers seek a win to pull up in the standings in the AFC North.
The fans of the Cardinals of Arizona had a shock in their loss of Week 4 to the Rams of St. Louis, and then made a comeback last weekend to beat the Detroit Lions 42-17 for a big win for Arizona.
The star of the game last week was QB Palmer who passed for 3 TD’s as he competed just 11of 14 pass attempts and 162 yards. Now for the season QB Palmers has passed for 13 TD’s with just 3 intercepts to date. The Cards RB C. Johnson had 11 carries for 104 yards and thus has average 100 yards per game for the last 3 games to date. On defense the Cardinal frustrated Lions QB M. Stafford for the entire game, as free safety R. Johnson intercepted QB Stafford on 2 occasions, while star CB P. Peterson also had an interception of QB Stafford. The Arizona Cardinal’s are 1st in the NFL with 11 interceptions for this 2015 season. The Cardinals will seek to force turnovers this Sunday from the Steelers, so they can get their aggressive offense on the game as much as possible. However, we must remember in the turnovers, the Steelers this season have only turned the ball over twice to date in their 5 weeks of NFL.
The fans of the 3-2 Steelers of Pittsburgh experienced the 2nd week of back-up QB M. Vick leading the way, and in the last game against the Chargers on Monday Night won the game in the last minute 23-20. Whether QB Roethlisberger will return for this game with Cardinals is still questionable. QB Vick played another game without any costly errors and showed signs of his heyday late in the 4th quarter.
In the game QB Vick completed a pass for a TD of 72 yards to M. Wheaton that tied the game 17-17, then on a 3rd with 6 yards to go he broke for a 24 yard run, and then followed up with pass to TE H. Miller for a TD and the unexpected upset. For the game QB Vick finished with 13 completions on 26 pass attempts for 2014 yards and 1 TD. What kept the Steelers close in this game was RB L Bell who carried the ball some 21 times for 112 yards and the biggest carry was a 1 yard run for a TD as the game clock expired to give the Steelers the upset win.
In this game if QB Ben does not start the ball control by the Steelers will be very important with QB Vick and RB Bell key to the offense. But the team also has to face the struggling secondary that in their game with the Chargers they allowed QB Rivers to complete some 74% of his pass attempts as he passed for 366 yards and 2 TDs both to TE A. Gates. Defensively their concern is that the unit has only managed 4 takeaways to date, which makes fans wonder what happened to the so called Steel Curtain that helped Pittsburgh win a lot of games in the past. The Steelers in the ultimate 5 meetings with the Cardinals have won 4 of those games.
The sports betting prediction for this game is that the Cardinals will win the game as they score 27 and hold the Steelers to just 10 points.