Steelers come to Oakland 11-point favorites over Raiders

One thing you can say about the Raiders loss to the Chiefs in week 13 is the Chiefs didn’t cover their spread of 15.5 points. It was largest spread by a visiting team in Oakland in at least 20 years.

This week’s spread against the Steelers may not be more than two touchdowns, but it’s still significant. The Steelers are 11-point favorites over the Raiders in Oakland.

Even having lost their last two games — both to AFC West opponents Chargers and Broncos — they are still 7-4-1 on the season and leading the AFC South division. The Raiders are 2-10 and firmly at the bottom of the AFC West.

Helping matters for the Raiders is the absence of running back James Conner. The Chiefs were without their top back Kareem Hunt last week and the Raiders were able to keep pace with them late into the game, losing by one score 40-33.

That could either be your usual hard-to-predict match-up between the Chiefs and Raiders or a sign of things to come for the Raiders. If it’s just a one-off situation, the Raiders would go back to two-score losses as they had in six of their previous seven games.