Pregame thoughts

The Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Arizona Cardinals at 1pm on Sunday, December 3rd. I am looking forward to watching the Steelers first home game with new offensive “mojo.” This is the time of year when good teams start to assert themselves and I believe the Steelers are going to do just that this Sunday. The Arizona Cardinals rank 31st in the NFL in terms of points allowed per game (26.8/game). In terms of their offense, the Cardinals average 11.8 points per game on the road this season (25th overall in the league). If the Steelers play similarly this weekend as they did last weekend, this should be a spring-board game for the Steelers. With the friendly Acrisure crowd getting loud, the Steelers need to send a statement this weekend with a dominant performance on both sides of the ball.

Currently, according to the NY Times playoff simulator, the Steelers have a 72% chance to make the playoffs. This is running 455,000 simulations. If the Steelers win this Sunday against the Cardinals, that percentage jumps to 79% based on 165,802 simulations. I am extremely optimistic and happy about these odds not only because they are currently “good” odds, but also because of perspective on last year. At this point last season the Steelers were 4-7. Each week I would diligently plug in the possibilities in the ESPN playoff machine and NY Times simulator. Each week I would see the Steelers chances hover around 4-5%. Even going into the final 2 weeks, the Steelers had about 30% chance to make playoffs. It was stressful and I am glad that this year team has positioned themselves much better and just need to take care of their business to reach the playoffs.

Rooting Interests for Sunday: Steelers, Rams, Broncos, Titans, Jaguars, Packers.