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The first Sunday night game of the 2012 NFL season has plenty of dramatic story lines.  Peyton Manning returns to NFL action after a one-year injury layoff, and makes his debut with the Denver Broncos. And the Pittsburgh Steelers return to Mile High, where they were knocked out of the playoffs in a wild overtime wild card game by Tim Tebow and friends.

SPREAD: Broncos -1
MONEY LINE: Steelers +110, Broncos -130
OVER/UNDER: 44.5

Peyton Manning is 2-2 in four previous career meetings with the Steelers — of course, those were all when he was with the Indianapolis Colts. The last time Manning faced the Steelers was in 2008, and he won 24-20 in Pittsburgh.

In last year’s wild card game in Denver, the Steelers were 7.5-point road favorites, but lost by six in overtime. The Steelers won the last regular season meeting in 2009, winning 28-10 as three-point road favorites over a Broncos team quarterbacked by Kyle Orton.

During the 2011 regular season, the Steelers were 12-4 overall but just 7-9 against the spread — including covering just twice in eight road games.  The Broncos were 8-8 overall and almost as good against the spread (7-8-1), but covered the spread only once in eight home games (1-6-1 ATS).  You’d expect them to do better with Peyton Manning at quarterback.

As for the over/under, last season 10 of 16 Steelers games went Under, but road games were evenly split four Over and four Under.  Nine of 16 Broncos games went Over last season, including five of eight Denver home games.

If I was a betting man, I’d expect the Steelers defense to be a step ahead of the Broncos new offense, and I’d take the Steelers and the Under.