Numberfire prediction: A close one ...

Throughout the season we've periodically posted picks for the Steelers games from Pittsburgh native, Carnegie-Mellon grad, and statistics genius Nik Bonaddio, who runs Numberfire, a slick predictor of NFL games and fantasy football that uses a series of statistical models and algorithms based on past performance to determine winners and player performance.

Since starting Numberfire in 2010, he's been near perfect picking the Steelers against the spread, including basically nailing last year's AFC Championship and Super Bowl, and he's picking a squeaker for today.

Nik says ...

"I actually have it as a close game, Patriots 27-24. The cover is too close for me to recommend betting on either side of the line (ed. note: it's roughly Patriots -3 depending on where you look), but I think the Steelers have a decent enough shot at it. The three strongest predictors all show a Pittsburgh win, so we'll see.

NE wins: 61.95%

PIT covers: 52.70%"