Thursday Night Preview

Pittsburgh Steelers at Baltimore Ravens:
This is a difficult matchup as always to predict because these teams know each other so well. I think Baltimore comes out a bit sluggish with all the distractions going on. The best player in this game for the Ravens is going to be Steve Smith. No matter his age this guy still produces. Coming off an excellent week I still think the Steelers focus more on the other Smith. Torrey Smith follows up a lackluster performance with another dud and he is my bust for the Ravens this week. Throughout the preseason and clearly in the first game it has seemed to me that Flacco has more trust in his brand new receiver that the other Smith has fallen by the waistside. My sleeper pick is Justin Forsett, Terrence West put up 100 yards on the Steelers defense last game and he only had 16 carries. Forsett is a player they can use in the pass and run game and his career ypc average is over 5. People are underestimating how good he could be in this offense when he is finally given the chance.

The Steelers had a great first half last week against Cleveland but the offense grew very quiet in the 2nd half. I think that is something we are going to see a lot with this offense this season. They are young on that side of the ball and are going to go through learning curves. I really like Antonio Brown this week because AJ Green was able to break free deep against the Ravens secondary and I think Brown will score a big one in this game. My biggest bust is Markus Wheaton, expectations currently are just to high for him because of how good his game was last week. I expect a more average game from him this week and will look more like the receiver we should expect to see all season. Le'Veon Bell is my biggest bust, Bernard put 100 total yards against this defense last week but I think this Ravens defense will come out focused to stop him. He'll have a good game but I would temper expectations on him as well.

I am picking the Ravens to beat the Steelers in a close fun game that'll go down to the wire. Harbaugh won't allow his team to lose back to back games.