Steelers, Browns Week 8 Keys to the Game
The Pittsburgh Steelers are coming out of their bye week and ready to go. They entered the bye week looking up in the standings but thanks to losses by both the Ravens and Bengals, they came out of the bye with a hold on first place.
They will be looking to extend their first-place lead when the Browns come to town for the second matchup of the season between these two foes.
It’s well documented how the first game went in that 21-21 season-opening tie. The Steelers were embarrassed at the way they blew a 14-point fourth quarter lead and they will be looking to avenge that tie with a big win this week. Here’s what they’ll need to do to win the game.
The offensive line must continue to play well
It may seem like such an obvious statement but nothing is truer than the fact that this team is led by the O-line. If they play together, at the top of their game, there may not be a better O-line in the league and there certainly isn’t a more talented unit on the Steelers.
They have played extremely well over the last two games, games the Steelers won by the way. They’ve opened up running lanes for James Conner and have allowed Ben Roethlisberger time to distribute the ball effectively.
The defense must contain Jarvis Landry
The Steelers secondary is weak. Outside of Joe Haden, it’s straight up bad. They are very capable of giving up huge plays and Jarvis Landry is quite capable of making big plays.
Haden must be the guy who follows Landry all over the field and the front seven need to get to Baker Mayfield as they did against the Atlanta Falcons and Matt Ryan, which allowed them to stop Julio Jones. If they can put pressure on Mayfield, they will contain Landry and keep themselves ahead in the game.
They need to ride James Conner
Conner put up 192 all-purpose yards in week one to go along with two touchdowns. He also had a costly fumble that led to the tie. That said, he’s been a very good running back for this team over the first six games, putting the ball in the end zone seven times already.
I believe if the team can feed him the ball 20-25 times, he’ll get a couple of scores and help control the clock at the same time. If he can get his yards (he currently averages 4.4 yards per carry), he’ll open up the passing game.
Once that passing game opens up, the one and only Antonio Brown comes into play. Once Brown is involved, the splash plays follow. But it all starts with feeding the ball to Conner.
They need to buck the trend
The Steelers are 1-4 in their last five games coming off a bye week. That’s flat-out bad. I’m not sure what they are doing on their time off but they are clearly not preparing for their upcoming games.
We don’t have to go that far back to see what happened in the playoffs last year against Jacksonville, coming off a bye. The team better have prepped for the last two weeks, while enjoying their time off so they can buck this trend.
I expect the Steelers to come out swinging. You’ll see a lot of James Conner, a good amount of Ben to A.B., a heavy rush on Baker Mayfield and a team fired up and ready to prove this season is theirs for the taking. The Steelers will extend their win streak to three games with a 35-23 victory.
