Ben Roethlisberger Plays Devil's Advocate About Steelers' Odds Against Chiefs
By Peter Dewey
The Pittsburgh Steelers are historic underdogs in the wild card round of the NFL playoffs against the Kansas City Chiefs, but Ben Roethlisberger isn’t letting it get to him.
Ben Roethlisberger’s final comment today
— James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) January 12, 2022
“We’re probably 20 point underdogs and we’re going to the #1 team, I know they’re not the #1 seed but they’ve won the AFC the last two years, arguably the best team in football … we don’t have a chance. So let’s just go in and have fun."
WynnBET Sportsbook currently has Pittsburgh as a 13-point underdog in this game, and we broke down a trend on Tuesday that shows the Chiefs have an extremely high chance of winning this game, as 48 of the 58 teams favored by double-digits since 1970 have won the game.
The Chiefs already beat the Steelers this season, 36-10, but Roethlisberger, who may be making his final start in the NFL, isn’t going to let this matchup stop him from playing the underdog role.
The Steelers snuck into the playoffs with the Jacksonville Jaguars win over the Indianapolis Colts in Week 18, but they haven’t been one of the better teams in the NFL all season.
Despite that, Mike Tomlin’s team found ways to win games, even though Pittsburgh allowed the most yards per carry in the NFL (5.0), were 21st in points per game and were the fifth worst team in the NFL in terms of yards per play on offense this season.
The Steelers defense, which is led by T.J. Watt, stepped up in big spots, but they were also torched by Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in Week 16.
Does Roethlisberger playing devil’s advocate and acting like he’s already counted out advancing change anything about this game?
Steelers vs. Chiefs Prediction
As much as Big Ben may be trying the old reverse jinx, Kansas City has already shown that it is the superior team this season.
That being said, Mike Tomlin is amazing as an underdog in his career as a head coach, going 47-25-3 against the spread since 2007.
Our own Ben Heisler talked about it on the latest edition of our NFL Best Bets, and it’s hard to count Pittsburgh out from covering in this game, but winning may be out of the question.
I think Kansas City will win and cover, as the Chiefs didn’t mess around with this overachieving Steelers team in their first matchup, but if you’re brave enough to bet on Big Ben’s reverse jinx to work, you can take the Steelers on the moneyline at WynnBET at +500 odds.