Happy Friday to all of yinz.
It’s been a very depressing week for fans of the Pittsburgh Steelers due to linebacker Ryan Shazier suffering a serious injury to his spine Monday night in the team’s Monday night gamer against the Cincinnati Bengals. All we can do at this point is continue to hope and pray that his condition improves. It certainly was scary to watch the way that he went down after making that tackle Monday night. I can only imagine what he and his family have been going through ever since.
The 10-2 Steelers will host the 7-5 Baltimore Ravens Sunday night at Heinz Field and a win or tie by the home team will result in them winning the AFC North division once again. It certainly is shaping up to be a compelling game. Even if the Ravens lose Sunday night, I will be surprised if they don’t ultimately make the playoffs as a Wild Card team. Their defense, outside of just a few games, has been great this season.
As usual, I have five questions on this Friday night that I hope you will have time to answer in the comments below the post.
Have a great and safe weekend and please continue to keep Shazier and his family in your thoughts and or prayers.
Peace and love.
Go Steelers!
1 – What was the most egregious act by the league this past week: The upholding the one-game suspension of Steelers wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, or the dismissal of the one-game suspension of Bengals safety George Iloka?
2 – What percentage of the total defensive snaps will Arthur Moats ultimately play at inside linebacker Sunday night against the Ravens?
3 – True or false: Steelers linebacker Sean Spence will record at least one solo special teams tackle Sunday night against the Ravens.
4 – The Ravens rushed for 82 yards against the Steelers in the Week 4 meeting between the two teams. Will they exceed that number Sunday night at Heinz Field?
5 – Which is most likely to happen Sunday night: The Steelers score 30 or more points, or the Ravens score 13 or less points?
Recap last week’s Friday night questions per David Orochena:
Question 1 – Le’Veon Bell managed to gain 76 yards rushing on 18 attempts against the Bengals. That put him 10 yards ahead of the Steelers 66 total penalty yardage off 7 flags. All 38 respondents got a point for picking Bell.
Question 2 – James Harrison was inactive for the Bengals game. That leaves 4 more games for Deebo to play at least 20 defensive snaps (punt returns won’t count) for the 26 (68%) folks believing he will do it.
Question 3 – The Steelers had four 3rd down conversions (12 attempts); converted 1 red zone opportunity into a touchdown (4 attempts); sacked Andy Dalton twice but had no defensive turnovers. The combined total of 7 got them less than halfway to the 14.5 over/under. 22 folks (58%) got a point for taking the under.
Question 4 – Now that Ben McAdoo has been fired and Eli Manning reinstalled as the starter I bet the results would be significantly different if this question was repeated this week. Last week only 3 (7.5%) believed Eli would play for the Giants in 2018. Ten other destinations were named including retirement for Eli in 2018: 17 – Jacksonville (42.5%); 8 – Denver (20%); 3 – Retirement (7.5%); 2 – NY Jets (5%); 2 – Arizona (5%) and with 1 vote (2.5%) apiece – Buffalo, Miami, Washington, Kansas City & Pittsburgh.
Question 5 – Surprisingly, just as many people picked the Penn State Nittany Lions as their favorite team as those who said they did not follow college football or had no favorite team. The 18 votes these two answers got almost matched the combined total of the 16 other programs named: Pitt Panthers (3); Alabama Crimson Tide (2); Montana Grizzlies (1); Notre Dame Fighting Irish (1); San Diego State Aztecs (1); Western Kentucky Hilltoppers (1); UCLA Bruins (1); Maryland Terrapins (2); Nebraska Cornhuskers (1); Oklahoma Sooners (1); Florida Gators (1); Washington Huskies (1); Clemson Tigers (1); James Madison Dukes (1); Michigan Wolverines (1); West Virginia Mountaineers (1). Even though Penn State is my favorite college football team; will give out a shout out to my alma mater – the California University of Pennsylvania Vulcans.
Last week, 22 folks picked up two points. A third point will be rewarded once we know whether James Harrison will play 20 snaps in these last few games. Also, from Week 9, seven people got a point this week for naming Andy Dalton as a quarterback not named Tom Brady that scared them in the 2nd half of season. The Bengals ultimately Bungled as usual but he did give us a scare. Congrats to Phil Brenneman II, PaeperCup, Wes Lee, RiversTKO, David Henderson, NinjaMountie, & Josh Cummings you each get a point. We’ll see if Flacco, Savage or Kizer threaten the Steelers at all.
Leaderboard after Week 12:
1st Place – Alan Tman with 24 points (no change between 1st & 2nd)
2nd Place – Reader783 with 22 points
3rd Place – (tie) Darth Blount 47, SJT63 & Marcel Chris Chauvet with 21 points (pack trailing the leaders)
6th Place – (tie) Jeff McNeil & LucasY59 with 20 points (still in the hunt)
8th Place – (tie) Chris92021 & Matt Manzo with 19 points (steady snowmen)
10th Place – Phil Brennenman II with 18.5 points (is last year’s winner making a move?)
11th Place – (tie) Josh Cummings, Beaver Falls Hosiery, SkoolHouseRoxx & DirtDawg1964 with 18 points (2nd tier pack)
15th Place – J. with 17 points (all by his lonesome)
16th Place – (tie), Jaybird, heath miller, RiversTKO & Michael Mosgrove with 16 points (time to get serious boys)
20th Place – (tie) Kevin Schwartz & Pittfan with 15 points (welcome to the leaderboard Pittfan)
Dropped out: Johnny Loose
