{"id":8370,"date":"2010-09-30T07:00:17","date_gmt":"2010-09-30T12:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=8370"},"modified":"2010-09-30T00:17:51","modified_gmt":"2010-09-30T05:17:51","slug":"nfl-picks-ravens-vs-steelers-game-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nfl-picks-ravens-vs-steelers-game-preview-8370\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Picks: Ravens Vs Steelers Game Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers, Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, PA
\nSunday, October 3, 2010, 1 pm EST, TV: CBS
\nOpening Line: Steelers -1.5
\nCurrent Line: Steelers -1
\nOpening Total: 36
\nCurrent Total: 34
\nMoney Line: Steelers -120 \/ Ravens +100
\n<\/strong>You Can Bet NFL On Games at Bookmaker Sportsbook who offers a 25% signup bonus!
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Baltimore
The Ravens are currently 1.5 point road underdogs over the 3-0 Pittsburgh Steelers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Pittsburgh Steelers (3-0) face their biggest \u2013 and last \u2013 test without Ben Roethlisberger when they host the Baltimore Ravens (2-1) in a key AFC North battle on Sunday.\u00a0 The Steelers (-1 on the current NFL lines) will get their star quarterback back next week after his four-game suspension and could use him here against a Ravens team that has something to prove after they struggled in a 24-17 win over Cleveland last week.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh will give veteran Charlie Batch one more start under center after he performed fairly well in a 38-13 blowout win at Tampa Bay last week.\u00a0 Batch completed 12 of 17 passes for 186 yards and tied a career-high three touchdowns but also threw two interceptions.\u00a0 He entered the season as the team\u2019s fourth-string quarterback behind Roethlisberger, Dennis Dixon and Byron Leftwich and was elevated due to the suspension and injuries to Dixon and Leftwich.<\/p>\n

Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall has helped solidify the offense with his strong play, rushing for 143 yards and a touchdown against the Bucs.\u00a0 Mendenhall also scored the game-winning touchdown in the season-opening overtime win over Atlanta and ranks fourth overall in the NFL with 332 rushing yards.\u00a0 He should be especially motivated going up against a Ravens defense that broke his shoulder blade when he was a rookie two years ago.<\/p>\n

Baltimore\u2019s defense has shown some weaknesses this year despite leading the league in least yards allowed with 244.3 per game.\u00a0 The Ravens gave up 144 rushing yards to Browns running back Peyton Hillis last week, the most they have surrendered on the ground in five years.\u00a0 Still, they have held Pittsburgh under 100 rushing yards in nine of the last 10 meetings.<\/p>\n

Quarterback Joe Flacco will look to continue his improved play for Baltimore after throwing for 262 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions against Cleveland.\u00a0 Flacco had tossed one touchdown pass and five picks in the team\u2019s first two games, but he finally took advantage of wide receiver Anquan Boldin\u2019s skills last week.\u00a0 Boldin was targeted 11 times and made eight catches for 142 yards, scoring all three touchdowns from Flacco.<\/p>\n

However, the Ravens offense could be without running back Ray Rice, who suffered a deep knee bruise last week and has been held out of practice.\u00a0 Rice broke Pittsburgh\u2019s string of not allowing a 100-yard rusher for 33 games last December and would be replaced by Willis McGahee if he is unable to play against the Steelers.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh leads the NFL in scoring defense, allowing just 11 points per game while forcing a league-high 11 turnovers.\u00a0 Surprisingly, the OVER is 6-1-1 in the last eight meetings between these defensive stalwarts.\u00a0 The Steelers have won four of the last five meetings with a 3-1-1 mark against the spread during that stretch.<\/p>\n

Maddux Sports is red hot in the NFL with our NFL Picks.\u00a0 Week 4 figures to be another wallet stuffer.\u00a0 Get on board by visiting our winning NFL picks page and get our Sunday package which includes our 20 unit game of the year pick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers, Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, PA Sunday, October 3, 2010, 1 pm EST, TV: CBS Opening Line: Steelers -1.5 Current Line: Steelers -1 Opening Total: 36 Current Total: 34 Money Line: Steelers -120 \/ Ravens +100 You Can Bet NFL On Games at Bookmaker Sportsbook who offers a 25% signup bonus! The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":4289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[608,3204,1922,346,3203,2991],"class_list":["post-8370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-bet-on-nfl-games","tag-nfl-picks","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-steelers-ravens-preview","tag-winning-nfl-picks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8370"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8379,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8370\/revisions\/8379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}