Bold predictions for a Steelers win over the Browns this Sunday
It feels like forever since I’ve made some bold game predictions… and that’s probably because the Steelers had last week off.
Just as you’re feening for some football, I am too. Not only is the next game at home, it’s also on my birthday! And to top things off, the Steelers are wearing throwback jerseys.
But just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, I remembered that I hit on many of my Bengals game predictions too!
Here’s a refresher of my bold predictions from that game, many of which should make “writers” from other Steelers websites (who copy our material) super jealous that they can’t remotely get close to duplicating my guesswork. (Nice try suckers!)
- Steelers win fifth-straight game at Paul Brown Stadium
- Yup!
- Steelers drop 350+ yards of offense
- Double yup!
- Two Steelers top 100 yards receiving
- Triple yup!
- Conner tops 100 all-purpose yards
- Quadruple yup!
- Andy Dalton sacked 3-4 times
- Whatever-five-is-uple yup!
- A.J. Green held to 5 for under 100
- Oooo this was sooooo close. Okay, so Green was held to 7 catches for 85 yards, with 2 of those receptions (30 yards) coming on their last drive. Gimme a “five-and-a-half-uple yup” here.
- Antonio Brown held scoreless
- Swing and a miss: Wi-Fi is boomin’.
- Boswell makes three field goals, no misses
- Two field goals, two PATs and no miscues: winner-winner chicken dinner.
As you can tell I’m not one to humble-brag, but let’s be honest: I’m insanely lucky with my picks this season. (My fantasy football team, however, not so much.) Regardless, these are bold predictions and I’m going bold with my boasting on this blog! (Holy alliteration Batman!)
Without further ado, here comes the B-O-L-D predictions for Week 8!
400 yards
Let’s pick off the low-hanging fruit first: the Steelers offense has only failed to gain 350 or more yards once this season: that was the awful second half against the Baltimore Ravens.
They’ll get their 350 and then some against a Browns defense conceding an average of 413.6 yards per game and ranked 28th against the run and 26th against the pass.
30+ points
With all of those yards, the Steelers offense should score 30 or more.
Notice I said “offense”, as I think there could be some defensive or special teams points to tack onto this total before all is said and done!
Gimme a W
No OT this week. The Steelers are prepared to play like it’s a home game this Sunday following lots of rest and preparation. Cleveland hits the road for their second straight road game after getting the doors blown off them by the Chargers at home the previous game.
Pittsburgh gets the victory.
Sack the Quarterback
The Browns have given up 31 sacks in seven games this season, an average of over four per game.
The Steelers lit up Tyrod Taylor, a “mobile” quarterback, for seven sacks in Week 1. With the Browns line already bad, their starting center didn’t practice on Wednesday, opening the floodgates for at least five sacks from the Steelers.
No turnovers
The Browns lead the NFL in turnover differential, in part to the Steelers having a “Christmas in September” party to open the season.
Pittsburgh handed Cleveland the ball six times in Week 1: that’s not going to happen, at all, this Sunday.
Conner crosses 150
Did I mention the Browns suck at stopping the run? Because they do.
134 is their average given up per game and I can easily see James Conner catching a few passes out of the backfield as well. I’m going more bullish than usual and say he chews up some clock and racks up some yards en route to 150 from scrimmage.
