Minnesota Vikings vs. Pittsburgh Steelers NFL Week 14 TNF Betting Odds, Expert Picks, and Preview

Minnesota Vikings vs. Pittsburgh Steelers NFL Week 14 TNF Betting Odds, Expert Picks, and Preview

The Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings kick off Week 14 of the NFL season with a Thursday Night Football showdown that’s a must-win for both franchises, as their playoff hopes hang by a thread, respectively. Markets corner this game with the Vikings as field-goal favorites at home, but the public is leaning ever so slightly towards the Steelers as the +3 road underdogs.

Minnesota Vikings vs. Pittsburgh Steelers Start Time, Where to Watch, and Odds

• Pittsburgh Steelers (6-5-1) vs Minnesota Vikings (5-7-0)
• Date: Thursday, December 9, 2021
• Start Time: 8:20 PM ET
• Location: US Bank Stadium, Minneapolis
• TV Broadcast: NFL Network

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Steelers Betting Preview

The Steelers served up a surprising upset over the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, eking out the 20-19 victory to clinch their sixth win of the season and keep their playoff hopes alive. The AFC landscape is crowded with several hopefuls vying for one of the three wildcard spots. The Steelers are just on the fringe of the cut-off line, ranked eighth in the race behind the Los Angeles Chargers (5th), Cincinnati Bengals (6th), and BuffaloBills (7th).

Ben Roethlisberger has been dealing with a slew of injuries and those have affected his play this season. This has resulted in the Steelers being called “punch-less” and “anemic,” and see their offense ranking in the bottom half of the table. The Steelers are 21st in total offense, which is comprised of the 14th ranked passing offense and 28th ranked run offense.

True to form, the Steelers struggled to move the ball against Baltimore for the better part of three quarters before Roethlisberger perked up in the final stanza. A touchdown drive in the final minutes of the game and a two-point conversion lifted the Steelers to the 20-13 lead. The Ravens responded with similar intensity and drove downfield for a touchdown, but instead of kicking for the extra point to tie, they went for the two-point conversion with 12 seconds left in the game. Marc Andrews was relatively wide open and had he not bungled the catch, the Ravens might have gotten away with the stunning last-gasp victory. As it were, the ball trickled off of his fingertips, and with it, the Ravens dropped the game.

Vikings Betting Preview

The Minnesota Vikings succumbed to the biggest upset of the season, falling to the winless Detroit Lions 29-27 at Ford Field on Sunday. To say it wasn’t good optics for Mike Zimmer and the Vikings is an understatement. Headlines screaming “Disaster in Detroit”, summed it up perfectly

The Lions deserve credit for their perseverance, spirit, and fight. They simply wouldn’t go down with a whimper, and in the final seconds of the game, Jared Goff threw an 11-yard passing touchdown to Amon-Ra St. Brown to clinch the momentous victory on a weekend Motown faithful was mourning an unspeakable tragedy.

For the Vikings, it was yet another inexplicable and frustrating loss in a topsy-turvy season that is fast going nowhere. Cousins finished with his customary gaudy numbers that did little more than to pad his own stats. He went 30 of 40 for 340 passing yards and two touchdowns. He finished with a solid 116.7 passer rating.

The Vikings are a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. They are simply indecipherable, unpredictable, and impossible to back with any conviction on the NFL odds from week to week. If there’s a key to figuring them out, it’s unknown yet. Zimmer doesn’t seem to have a handle himself either.

Vikings vs. Steelers Odds

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The market for this game is understandable and, even, to be expected. One could argue, Minnesota’s field goal advantage is a function of their home advantage. Las Vegas oddsmakers generally evaluate home advantage to be worth around 2.8 points. In a matchup involving two teams that share many similarities and rank comparatively enough to cancel each other out on a neutral field, a three-point spread is quite a common occurrence and it’s generally given to the home team.

In other words, if this game were to take place on neutral territory, very little would separate them. The betting line would essentially be a pick’em. This might explain the betting trends which reveal that 49% of early bets are on Minnesota and 51% of bets on Pittsburgh.

Vikings vs. Steelers Betting Predictions and Picks

As alluded to above, this game is a right tossup for NFL picks. Home advantage tips the balance in favor of the Vikings, but following yet another gut-wrenching loss, can they be trusted to come through as the field-goal favorites? There’s just something not right with this team, and the synergy it has with its coach often runs on a very low frequency.

The Steelers aren’t exactly a well of confidence either, but they have emotional equity and that might separate them from their upcoming opponents. Mike Tomlin runs a tight ship. There’s a reason why he has never had a losing season in his 14-year tenure in Pittsburgh. Countless teams would have imploded or fallen off the rails at the first sign of adversity and challenge, but not Tomlin’s lot.

The Vikings could win, but the Steelers should win this game for many reasons, some of which are simply beyond the scope of this betting preview. In a nutshell, it comes down to predictability. The problem with the Vikings is their penchant to play down or up to the opponent's level. They don’t set the trend, pace or tempo, rather they allow the opponents to determine how the game unfolds. Tomlin is a smart guy. He bested Harbaugh last Sunday, calling the Ravens’ two-point play “predictable.” He’s likely to take advantage of the Vikings’ predictable trends too.

Vikings vs. Steelers NFL Picks: Steelers +3 (-105)