Last week I noted that teams do better in their second straight road game than they do in a road game off a home game. The Steelers are now playing their third straight road game. That happens so rarely, I don't know what to make of it. Everyone assumes it's a bad thing--could be. Playing in a second straight one looks like a plus to me. Maybe the third is too much.
What I do know for sure, though, is that a home team playing its second straight home game does better than a home team fresh off a road game. I won't bore you with the percentages.
That's the Broncos. So they not only have the home-field advantage, they also have the benefit of the extra week to settle in and improve fortifications.
There's one other angle in play here that I want to mention. The Steelers are a road dog going for a second straight road upset. That rarely happens. The home team wins in about 80% of games with that profile. Teams rarely go on the road and score a second-straight upset victory. A lot of suckers get encouraged by the first upset and think the second is probable. It's not.
The Steelers have something like a one in four chance of winning this, if I look only at the generic profile of the matchup as determined by the two teams' recent history. The Colts game looked much closer to 50-50; the Steelers looked like unusually good road dogs based on the recent play of the two teams. This situation is the opposite. The Steelers have an uphill fight here. Er, upmountain fight.
So I would look for hope in potential mismatches. Are the Broncos missing key players? Are they particularly weak against one of our strengths? That's where I will focus the rest of the week.
Like a lot of Steeler fans, I have the sense that this is a special group of players. And that they are only getting better game to game. Is that enough? We will see.
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