Ravens head coach John Harbaugh says he hasn’t decided whether Lamar Jackson and other key starters will play on Saturday against the Steelers. But the gambling world is confident that the Ravens will be playing their B-team in the season finale.
The Steelers are four-point favorites on Saturday at Baltimore, which shows that the bettors and the sports books believe the Ravens, having already clinched the AFC No. 1 seed, will sit their starters on Saturday. The Ravens have established themselves as the best team in the NFL and would be heavy favorites at home against the Steelers if they were playing to win.
It’s unknown whether bettors have inside information about Harbaugh’s plans that Harbaugh hasn’t shared with the public, or whether bettors are just taking an educated guess that Harbaugh wouldn’t risk Jackson’s health before the playoffs. But either way, it points to the reasons that as sports gambling becomes increasingly prevalent, transparency is important: All kinds of problems can arise when bettors are eager to get inside information about a team’s plans, before the team makes those plans public.
If the Ravens rest their starters, that’s great news for the Steelers, who are still fighting for a playoff berth. The Steelers’ clearest path to the playoffs is to beat the Ravens on Saturday, and then have either the Jaguars or Bills lose on Sunday. It’s going to be much easier for the Steelers to take care of their end of that deal if Jackson is watching from the sideline.