Steelers vs Ravens Odds: How To Bet NFL Week 18 Matchup

Steelers vs Ravens Odds

How To Bet NFL Week 18 Matchup

Yes, the Ravens have nothing to play for and are resting starters while the Steelers are in a must-win spot (and need help) to punch a playoff ticket, but this line is still egregious. To illustrate why, let’s try to see how close we can get to the market’s number by using the Week 5 matchup as a starting point and adjusting step by step until it reflects the current circumstances.

1) The Ravens closed -5 at Pittsburgh in Week 5. On average, sportsbooks are adding 1.8 points for home-field advantage this season. The impact of home-field advantage tends to be lessened in divisional matchups, but both of these teams are among the best when it comes to home-field advantage.

So, let’s go with a two-point home-field advantage for each team. That would make Baltimore a -7 on a neutral field and -9 at home.

2) Both teams also warrant a bump in their power rating relative to Week 5: The Steelers have since gotten back key players who were injured (Cam Heyward, Diontae Johnson, etc.) and upgraded at offensive coordinator (Eddie Faulkner for Matt Canada) and quarterback (Mason Rudolph for Kenny Pickett), while the Ravens proceeded to go 10-1 with a +176 point differential. I personally have the Ravens getting a greater bump – posting an elite point differential over two-thirds of the season is far more tangible and predictive than the smaller-sample changes involving mostly non-QBs (who are far less relevant to the point spread) and highlighted by a mere two games of improved QB play.

For the sake of this exercise, though, let’s assume all of those factors for both teams offset and stick with Ravens -9 as a baseline for this week’s matchup.

3) Tyler Huntley is one of the more competent backup QBs in the league and would have represented roughly a 5-point drop-off from Lamar Jackson entering this season. With Jackson playing at an MVP level, though, let’s dock the Ravens a full 6 points to account for the drop-off from Jackson to Huntley, who has lost by more than three points just once in eight career regular-season starts.

That brings us to Ravens -3.

4) The Ravens are also expected to sit many of their best players, such as CB Marlon Humphrey (already ruled out), WR Zay Flowers (listed as doubtful), LT Ronnie Stanley and S/CB Kyle Hamilton (listed as questionable). But we’re dealing in tenths of a point per player when talking about the value of even the best non-QBs to the spread. And though the Ravens will be sitting some of the league’s top players, we also have to take into account the value of their replacements, which for the Ravens is higher than most. You don’t go 13-3 – or win 24 straight preseason games, for that matter – without a deep roster.

Even with Flowers and Odell Beckham Jr. sitting, their main rotation of skill players will likely still include Melvin Gordon (and perhaps even Dalvin Cook) at RB, Rashod Bateman/Nelson Agholor/Tylan Wallace/Laquon Treadwell at WR, and Isaiah Likely/Charlie Kolar (who is not a popular name but has posted 8/113/1 on just career 65 routes and caught his first TD last week) at TE. Including backups, Stanley has been one of their worst offensive linemen due to nagging injuries. And defensively, you’d be hard-pressed to find a player that has graded out poorly at Pro Football Focus on the first, second or third string. There’s also the fact that guys like Humphrey and Stanley have already missed a handful of games, so their absences would already be partially reflected before making any further adjustments.

Even if we dock the Ravens a full three points for all of those absences – which is aggressive – that brings us to just a pick'em.

5) We know that being in a must-win spot and facing a team that has nothing to play for isn’t worth anything to the spread and has actually shown to be detrimental to a team’s performance. If anything, we should bump the Ravens back up to a slight favorite, but let’s leave it at a pick’em.

Even with a pretty aggressive adjustment favoring the Ravens, we’re barely at a pick’em, yet this line has been hovering between Steelers -3 and -4. If you just look at the line on the surface, you can trick yourself into thinking Pittsburgh is going to win because it's in a must-win spot and the Ravens are resting starters. When you really break it down, though, it becomes obvious that this line is massively inflated.

And that’s before factoring in that this is a classic letdown spot for the Steelers. According to our Action Labs data, the Steelers are 36-55-2 (40%) against the spread (ATS) when favored by three or more points coming off a win. When favored by any amount on the road coming off a win, the Steelers are just 15-26-1 (37%) ATS, failing to cover by 2.9 points per game.

And that’s just the half of it. The Ravens are one of the most well-coached teams in the league and are 46-30-3 (61%) ATS as an underdog under John Harbaugh, covering by 2.1 points per game – including a perfect 6-0 ATS mark as a home dog since 2019.

Add it all up, and the Ravens are getting points despite being the better-coached team, at home, in a battle of backup QBs with comparable rosters around them, with all the pressure on the Steelers, in a matchup that has seen the underdog go 23-5-2 (82%) ATS in the Harbaugh vs. Tomlin era.

NFL Pick: Ravens +3 (Bet to +2)