I’m going to keep this brief and to the point as this seems like a gimme bet to me tonight and it shouldn’t need much explanation.

Patriots -7

The Steelers have simply run into a buzz saw tonight as the Patriots faithful will be loud, drunk and just plain festive. They’re raising a championship banner tonight, Tom Brady’s suspension was overturned, so that special brand of New England elitism and entitlement will be out in full force tonight. Just drunk, entitled 18-35 year old goofballs who have never played football in their life, but who say things like “WE are going to the Super Bowl this year” or “WE are better than the Jets” chanting “F Goodell,” but fully forming that chant with two consonants and a vowel.

Oh…AND you don’t LeVeon Bell or Martavis Bryant? Oh…and DeAngelo Williams, Dri Archer and Jordan Todman are the only running backs on your roster? This Patriots team might be without Darrelle Revis this year, but I just think that this is a repeat of what happened to the Steelers against the Ravens last year, they won’t have enough to maintain any semblance of balance and the Patriots will be able to capitalize.

You watch what Nick Saban and Alabama did to Wisconsin last week when Michael Caputo (Pardon the Interruption, but huge fan of guys who sound like they’re from Goodfellas, plus his name means ‘stubborn’ in Italian, which is not far off from my grandpa’s Malatesta meaning ‘thick headed) went down with that injury and you saw the same thing with his lifelong friend Belichick in last year’s Super Bowl hammering away at Tharold Simon after Jeremy Lane broke his arm. This is what these guys do, they construct a way to just needle away at your weakness, so don’t be surprised if this one gets out of hand.

That said, when LeVeon Bell gets back, the Steelers are a serious contender, that’s how big a deal he is. A true MVP candidate.

By the way Roger, let’s do away with suspending players for smoking weed. Do you like the insane number of former football players who are addicted to opiates? Because I know plenty, so I’m going to assume you’re okay with that since you haven’t done anything to change that culture within football.

Pain is never going away in the NFL, it’s a brutal forget about testing people for cannabis, encourage it. I’m not okay with our sport creating addicts and that’s the message the league sends to every single football player from high school on up. Heroin based painkillers are okay, Toradol is okay, cortisone (which can damage your tendons and ligaments) is okay, but cannabis isn’t.

Opiate addiction for former football players should be RIGHT behind only CTE in the level of importance that the NFL puts on the issue. Lost former football players between the ages of 18-24 are dying because they move from pills to heroin. Positive social change within football will start at the top and I’m looking at you Roger. Spend next offseason chasing a real issue rather than what you did this year.

@ZackMooreNFL