NFL Week 14 Pick for Thursday Nighter
This is my pick for the one Thursday game in week 14. The full column will be up tomorrow.
Pittsburgh at Cleveland 8:20 PM (Thu)
The Steelers are favored by ten right now even though they’ve lost four straight games with the two of them being against the Chiefs and Raiders. Their last three losses were all by 3 points. They are the masters of losing the close games. Those are two really bad teams. Thing is, the Browns are probably worse. Everybody talks about the Steelers trying to get in the playoffs, but what about the Browns? They’re in a three way tie for first pick in the draft and at this point they are in the #1 position based on tiebreakers. They don’t want to lose that! There’s no question that the biggest issue for the Steelers is their defense, which really misses Troy Polamalu, who has proven in his absence that he’s the best defensive player in football. At least he’s the most valuable. You see how many guys are open deep in that secondary and you realize just how good Polamalu is at dictating things when he’s back there. Still, the offense is above average again with Roethlisberger looking like himself and I don’t think they’re going to lose a game on a short week to a pedestrian Browns offense. This will be a low scoring, December football game in a cold city. Not pretty to watch, but the Steelers will pull through. I like the Browns for the cover, though. Steelers 24-17
I’ll be back Friday for the rest of this week’s games.
John Canton
oratoryjohn@gmail.com
TJRWrestling 
I gotta be honest. I think the Browns may pull off the upset. Call me crazy, but I can see it happening tonight. 20-17 Cleveland.
hopefully the browns go off and the offense finds its stride in this game because fantasy wise i need pit’s D to give up some points. don’t think that’s likely to happen though.
It’s cold and snowy in Cleveland. I officially change my score prediction to 17-10 or something low like that!
Why Cleveland won? Pittsburgh was in a tailspin with a short week to prepare. The Browns, no matter how bad, are always good for a win at home on prime time TV.