Eagles vs. Steelers Point Spread: NFL TNF Preseason Football

The Pittsburgh Steelers opened as 3.5-point favourites against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sports Interaction NFL odds with a total of 40.5. You might notice that totals are  bit higher in Week 2 of the preseason because the sportsbooks assume the starters will play  more.

Philadelphia Eagles vs. Pittsburgh Steelers

Point Spread: Steelers -3.5
Over/under: 40.5
Date: Thursday, Aug. 18, 7 p.m. ET
Location:Heinz Field, Pittsburgh

Philadelphia Eagles

Philadelphia opened the preseason last Thursday at home vs. Tampa Bay and the Eagles got a 17-9 win for their new head coach Doug Pederson, the former Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator and disciple of ex-Eagles coach Andy Reid.

We didn’t learn too much about the Philadelphia offense that night as the Bucs had two quick first-half turnovers and the Eagles turned them into 14 points, needing only to go 27 yards combined on the two drives. The first score was a Ryan Mathews 5-yard touchdown run; he’s the team’s No. 1 tailback. The second was a Chase Daniel 3-yard TD run. He’s the No. 2 quarterback behind Sam Bradford, who barely played.

The player most Eagles fans wanted to see in the opener was third-string QB Carson Wentz. He’s the player the Eagles gave up a ton for in draft picks to move up to No. 2 overall in this year’s draft and pluck Wentz out of North Dakota State. Wentz finished 12-for-28 for 89 yards in a little more than two quarters of action but unfortunately also suffered a hairline rib fracture late in the game and could be out the rest of the preseason. The Eagles say they had no plans of using Wentz at all in the regular season, but he certainly would have played in each preseason game.

Only three quarterbacks selected in the top five of the common draft era (which is since 1967) have not started a regular-season game as a rookie: Art Schlichter in 1982, Carson Palmer in 2003 (he was the No. 1 overall pick by Cincinnati) and Philip Rivers in 2004 (he was behind a guy named Drew Brees in San Diego).

The Eagles made a surprising trade with Tennessee on Tuesday, landing receiver Dorial Green-Beckham for offensive lineman Dennis Kelly. We should see DGB get some time Thursday.

Pittsburgh Steelers

The Steelers are opening with back-to-back home preseason games for the first time in 11 years. So after Thursday, they won’t play at home again until Week 2 of the regular season when they host blood rival Cincinnati.

Pittsburgh lost its preseason opener 30-17 to Detroit last Friday. Hard to reach much into that as players like quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, running backs Le’Veon Bell and DeAngelo Williams, wide receivers Antonio Brown and Markus Wheaton, and center Maurkice Pouncey all sat out. On defense, so did 2016 first-round cornerback Artie Burns and linebackers Bud Dupree and Jarvis Jones — former first-round picks.

No. 2 QB Landry Jones was 6-for-12 for 55 yards and a TD. Expected No. 3 QB Bruce Gradkowski was 3-for-3 for 22 yards but tore his hamstring in the game. His season might be over. Losing your third-string QB often isn’t a big deal, but if Big Ben and Jones were to be injured in the regular season the team’s only other QB is Dustin Vaughan. He has never been active for an NFL regular-season game and is a second-year undrafted free agent out of West Texas A&M.

One player you won’t see is projected starting tight end Ladarius Green, who reportedly is battling headaches — not to mention an ankle injury — and is in the concussion protocol. The Steelers have been really vague about his issues all during camp and some think he might not play for the team this season. He was signed as a free agent from San Diego to replace the retired Heath Miller.

Eagles vs. Steelers Prediction

This teams play pretty regularly in the preseason and did last in 2014, a 31-21 Eagles home win. Take from that what you want. I’ll take Philly on the NFL preseason game odds (and the under) as I know that Bradford and Daniel will play a while and not sure Roethlisberger will at all. It’s also a shorter week for Pittsburgh.