Thursday Night Football

Pittsburgh Steelers @ Cleveland Browns

‘Thursday night football’ this week comes live from the Dog pound as the 1 – 11 Browns host their divisional rival 6 – 6 Steelers. This game is absolutely vital for the Steelers playoff hopes. If they lose this, they can pretty much forget making the post season. The Browns have not been making the playoffs for a long time, so a prime time game, at home, against a divisional rival is as good as it gets for them. I’m sure that they will be relishing playing spoiler in this game. To be completely honest, I don’t think they have a chance.

A big talking point surrounding the Cleveland Browns is who will be the QB next year. Will it be Brady Quinn? Derek Anderson? Or will they use draft picks (which will obviously be high ones) to select somebody? I personally believe that Brady Quinn should be the future. The problem he has had this year is that he has a very poor surrounding cast, and the coaches are very conservative. I would like to see Quinn, with a decent receiver, and being allowed to air the ball out a bit. I think you would see a different player in this situation. Quinn may be able to throw the ball a bit easier than expected in this game as the Steelers are still without Polomalu. This, of course, makes this defence a lot less scary than normal. I think Quinn has an ok game, but as I said before, the supporting cast are not up to much. One interesting thing to look out for is kick returner on the Browns Josh Cribbs. He is one of the elite returners in the league, and may run riot against this poor Steelers coverage unit.

The Steelers will have Big Ben back at QB for this game. This obviously drastically improves the offence. Ironically, after criticising Big Bens toughness when he missed the Ravens game, WR Hines Ward looks to be out of this game. Wonder what Ben makes of this?? The loss of Ward would decrease the effectiveness of the Steelers passing game, but they should easily win this game on the ground. The Browns defence ranks 29th in rush defence. Also they have now lost nose tackle Shaun Rodgers, who was a beast in that defensive line. His loss undoubtedly increases the Steelers ability in the run game. Steelers RB Rashard Mendenhall is getting 5 yards/carry this year and have 5 TD’s. I expect him to have a big game here.

Lee’s Prediction: Steelers 24 Browns 7