NFL Picks for Week 14

Welcome to my picks for week fourteen. I went 10-6 last week for the second week in a row, which is fine, but I would love a 13 or 14 pick week as we head into the final four weeks. Starting out 0-1 thanks to the Steelers losing doesn’t help, though.

Last week: 10-6
Season: 124-68 (.646)

All game times are Eastern.

New Orleans at Atlanta 1:00 PM
Too many injuries to roll with the Falcons. To beat the Saints you’re going to need to put up 30 or more and they can’t do that with Chris Redman at QB. The Saints continue their incredible run. Saints 34-14

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