NFL Wild Card Weekend: Pittsburgh Steelers to Start in DraftKings & FanDuel

Tannehill, meanwhile, was a limited participant in practice for the first time since sustaining slight tears in the MCL and ACL of his left knee on December 11 against Arizona. The Steelers defense is getting better, but is a far cray from the unit that won Super Bowls several years ago.

“Largely, I think their personality remains the same”, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said.

Matt Moore stepped in for Tannehill during the Arizona game.

Oddsmakers aren’t amused. Without glittery statistics – and without injured quarterback Ryan Tannehill – the Dolphins are 10-point underdogs, the biggest margin of the wild-card weekend.

A key to the Steelers stopping Ajayi from running for 200 yards again and Moore from throwing the ball deep will be the play of Steelers safety Sean Davis, according to Chris Burke at SI.com. He’s also completed 63 percent of his passes and has a 105.6 QB rating. But injury issues led him to miss all three of Pittsburgh’s playoff games during his standout career. He might come in tomorrow and he might be stiff and not feel as good as he thought or we thought he was going to be.

But out sense is that even if the Dolphins dominate special teams and win the turnover battle, and even if Suh has a monster game, the Steelers will just have a little too much juice in the end. The final score will be Pittsburgh 24 Miami 17. “It’s important to play your best football late in the season when it matters the most”.

There’s more to comb through for the Giants-Packers game in Green Bay Sunday, while the Lions-Seahawks’ game is a pretty clean slate … while full of plenty of intriguing storylines itself. Bell averaged 139.2 yards rushing per game in those six contests and Roethlisberger 243.7 passing.

As the AFC’s No. 6 seed, they have a significant challenge they weekend as they take on the No. 3-seed Pittsburgh Steelers on the road.

Look for Pittsburgh to load the box and focus its efforts on stopping Ajayi to force Moore to have to make more plays with his arm.

These days, Pennington, Brown and Williams are enjoying retirement, Ginn is still in the league with the Carolina Panthers and Porter is the outside linebackers coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers, his first team before going to Miami. Miami will need to get its pass rush grooving, but it’s hard to do that against a team with a weapon at running back like Le’Veon Bell. “Even the first time we played Pittsburgh, no one gave us a chance”.

If the Dolphins’ front can’t force Roethlisberger to the ground or into several turnovers – which is very possible – it could be a very long, and cold, Sunday afternoon in the Steel City. The Dolphins’ season was going the other way at the time at 1-4.

1 quarterback sat out practice Wednesday, making it unlikely he’ll return from a sprained left knee for the team’s first postseason game since 2008. That’s a tall order. Ajayi expects Pittsburgh to crowd the line of scrimmage and try to get their hands on him before he gets loose in the secondary, where hitting the 6-foot, 216-pounder is not for the squeamish. The way the Steelers are playing right now, I can’t see it happening.