PITTSBURGH STEELERS (1-0) @ BALTIMORE RAVENS (0-1)

Well it's been a pretty weird week for the NFL and for Baltimore particular, making it probably the best and worst time to face their (our) much hated rivals in Pittsburgh at home.

With the FBI now doing an independent investigation into the NFL's conduct of handling the Ray Rice situation after it appeared they (and reportedly Baltimore too) always had the "full" tape of his actions, suggesting there was a cover up on one or both's parts to save one of their stars' careers: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000392853/article/independent-investigation-to-be-held-into-rice-incident

Personally it's been very sad and bizarre to witness, not just as a Baltimore fan (something I'm increasingly questioning every day) but as a football fan in general, both in the initial conduct of a player I loved and respected, to the originally tepid, now scandalous treatment of the issue by both the team and the league in general.

So here's hoping the game is worth it eh? Baltimore and Pittsburgh matches has taken a slight knock in relevance over the last couple years as neither have been particularly dominant since Baltimore's Superbowl win, but that doesn't make them any less intense or as enjoyable as ever. As usual we can expect a largely defensive display with a lot of hard hitting (ref's allowing) and generally tight scoring.

It's still early days but Baltimore really did not impress against Cincy last weekend, while Pittsburgh made short work of a perpetually ludicrous Cleveland team. So the momentum has to be with the Steelers but one can't really make too much of these things until a couple weeks into the season.

It will be tight, but as things stand I think Pittsburgh may just have enough this time (by 2)

Proper thread at weekend!