Happy Black Friday to all of yinz and welcome to the weekend.
If you’re like me, you sat around Thursday on Thanksgiving and gorged yourself with ham, turkey and all appropriate side items and deserts. I ate entirely too much and am now paying for it on Friday. I also sat around all day and watched football and overall the games were disappointing, in my honest opinion. Even so, a full day of watching bad football games is better than a lot of other things I can think of.
Sunday night the Pittsburgh Steelers will host the Green Bay Packers at Heinz Field and that’s a game that many predict should result in a big win for the home team. The Steelers opened up as 14-point home favorites and that line hasn’t budged since. It would be nice to see the Steelers have a game well in hand by halftime for a change. Maybe Sunday night we’ll be treated to such an occurrence.
As usual, I have five questions for yinz to answer on this Friday night and if you’re not out doing your early Christmas shopping, I hope several of you will take some time to do just that.
Have a great holiday season and we look forward to covering the Steelers Sunday night game against the Packers for you.
Peace and love, peace and love!
Go Steelers!
1 – On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being very critical, how would you rate the loss of Steelers starting right tackle Marcus Gilbert for the next four games due to his suspension for violating the league’s PED policy?
2 – Will Steelers wide receivers Martavis Bryant and Eli Rogers combine to have more than 100 receiving yards Sunday night with rookie wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster sidelined with his hamstring injury?
3 – Now that he’s on the 53-man roster, will rookie cornerback Cameron Sutton be given an opportunity to return a punt in any of the Steelers final six regular season games?
4 – Besides punter Jordan Berry, which Steelers player would likely be the team’s best option to kick an extra point should the need ever arise?
5 – Besides maybe the New England Patriots, which other AFC team do you hope the Steelers don’t ultimately have to face in the playoffs and why?
Recap last week’s Friday night questions per David Orochena:
Question 1 – Overall, it seemed that respondents liked the heavy usage of the SkyCam during the game. Over 72% of the respondents said they either liked/loved it (18) or liked it but wanted it limited a bit (16). Only 10.5% (5) were against it preferring the traditional camera angles.
Question 2 – As a group, we were happy with Ben’s performance Thursday. On a scale of 1-10; the lowest rating was 6.5 with a high of 9. The median score was an 8 which is very good for a normally hard to please crowd.
Question 3 – 44 of 47 respondents submitted ballots for the Steelers they believe deserve votes from fans. 22 different players were named some for special teams. Here they are with the percentage of ballots they were named on: Antonio Brown (93.18%); Cam Heyward (93.18%); David DeCastro (72.73%); Ryan Shazier (72.73%); Le’Veon Bell (56.82%); Maurkice Pouncey (43.18%); Vince Williams (27.27%); Chris Boswell (18.18%); JuJu Smith-Schuster (13.64%); Stephon Tuitt (13.64%); Ramon Foster (11.36%); Joe Haden (9.09%); Mike Hilton (6.82%); Javon Hargrave & TJ Watt (4.55%). Bringing up the rear with 2.28% of vote were Roosevelt Nix, Chris Hubbard, Marcus Gilbert, Tyler Matakevich; Tyson Alualu, Sean Davis, & Kameron Canady.
Question 4 – As good citizens of Steelers Nation; almost all of us could find something to be disappointed in from a 40-17 victory over a team that had been a division leader. It’s our civic duty. Only one person came away from the Titans game with no disappointments. Our disappointments ranged from singling out players; different phases of the game or the referees. Artie Burns was singled out the most with 11 mentions. That was closely followed by 10 votes for giving up big plays or specifically the 75-yard touchdown pass to start the 2nd half that Artie, ironically, was not involved in. 7 voters cited poor tackling while 5 were concerned that the Steelers did not score enough early on – still trading too many field goals for touchdowns.
Question 5 – As for the incomplete end zone pass targeting Martavis Bryant; the biggest takeaway by far was Le’Veon Bell’s pick-up of the blitz (29 or 69%). Also in the glass half-full crowd were three folks who think it is good that Ben continues to target Martavis Bryant; he is due for a break out game. In the glass half-empty side six felt Martavis either does not know how to high point the ball or his skills have gone. 3 others pinned the blame on Benn for making a poor pass or missing AB and Xavier Grimble who were open on the other side of the field.
There was no scoring for any of the questions in Week 11; but everyone that answered the questions gets a participation point.
Leaderboard after Week 11:
1st Place – Alan Tman with 22 points
2nd Place – Reader783 with 21 points
3rd Place – (tie) Jeff McNeil & Darth Blount 47 with 19 points
5th Place – (tie) LucasY59, SJT63 & Marcel Chris Chauvet with 18 points
8th Place – (tie) Chris92021 & Josh Cummings, with 17 points
10th Place – (tie) Beaver Falls Hosiery, Matt Manzo, SkoolHouseRoxx, DirtDawg1964 with 16 points
14th Place – Phil Brennenman II with 15.5 points
15th Place – (tie) J. & Jaybird, with 15 points
17th Place – (tie) Johnny Loose, Michael Mosgrove & heath miller with 14 points
20th Place – (tie) RiversTKO & Kevin Schwartz with 13 points
