2018 NFL Week 12: Steelers Friday Night Five Questions

Happy Friday to all of yinz once again and I hope all had a great Thanksgiving.

We have a great weekend of football ahead of us and it begins shorty with Oklahoma playing West Virginia. That should be an entertaining game.

The Pittsburgh Steelers will play the Denver Broncos on Sunday with an opportunity to improve their record to 8-2-1. The Steelers, however, might be forced to start rookie tackle Chukwuma Okorafor in that game as Matt Feiler enters the weekend listed as questionable on the team’s injury report. Broncos outside linebacker Von Miller will certainly present a huge challenge for whomever the Steelers start at right tackle on Sunday.

As usual, I have five questions for yinz to answer during this Friday night and they are listed below along with the current standings that David O. has tabulated.

Have a safe holiday weekend and we look forward to covering the Steelers game against the Broncos for yinz on Sunday.

Peace and love and Go Steelers.

1 – In his previous two games played in Denver against the Broncos, Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown has average 72 yards receiving. Will he exceeded that average this Sunday?

2 – Steelers running back James Conner needs 104 rushing yards on Sunday against the Broncos to hit 900 for the season. Will he hit that number?

3 – How many times will the Steelers defense sack Broncos quarterback Case Keenum on Sunday?

4 – MyBookie.ag currently has the over/under for Sunday’s game between the Steelers and Broncos at 46.5. Are taking the over or the under?

5 – Name the AFC North teams that will register wins in Week 12.

Recap of NFL Week 11 Friday Night 5 Questions

Question 1 – Ben Roethlisberger completed 27 passes against the Jaguars. Just .1 of a completion UNDER his average for the season. The first part was easy. 2/3 of respondents took the under for the point. Our predictions ranged from 17-43 completions. Don2727 & Against the Spread nailed it for the 5-point bonus.

Question 2 – We named 16 different Steelers that deserve to receive Pro Bowl votes so far this season. Jesse James & James Washington were the only offensive players that have played over 50% of the Steelers snaps that were not named. On defense the list of players with over 50% of snaps that were excluded is longer: Sean Davis, Terrell Edmunds, Bud Dupree, Vince Williams, Stephon Tuitt, and Coty Sensabaugh. The 16 players ranked by percentage of respondents who named them: Dave DeCastro (93.5%), James Conner (85.5%), Antonio Brown (77.4%), Ben Roethlisberger (74.2%), Maurkice Pouncey (61.3%), Alejandro Villanueva (56.5%), JuJu Smith-Schuster (32.3%), T.J. Watt (30.7%), Joe Haden (24.2%), Mike Hilton (17.7%), Roosevelt Nix (16.1%), Vance McDonald (6.5%), Ramon Foster (4.8%), Marcus Gilbert (3.2%), and Jon Bostic (1.6%).

Points for this question will be awarded based on the initial Pro Bowl team announced on December 18. A point will be awarded for each player that makes the AFC Pro Bowl team, but a point deducted if you named a player that does not make it. You won’t get a negative score (e.g. you name 7 players and only 3 make it; you end up with 0.) Folks used different strategies. Some named only 1 or 2 players that they were sure would make it. Others used the shotgun approach and named up to 13. The median response listed 6 players.

The NFL released the standings of the fan voting just before Thanksgiving and 9 Steelers led the voting at their position: RB James Conner, WR Antonio Brown, FB & ST Roosevelt Nix, T Alejandro Villanueva, G David DeCastro, C Maurkice Pouncey, OLB T.J. Watt, ILB Jon Bostic, K Chris Boswell. Let’s see how that holds over the next few weeks and who initially makes it after the players and coaches weigh-in.

Question 3 – Leonard Fournette gained 95 yards rushing and another 46 receiving yards to easily exceed the 85 total yards from scrimmage that was set as the over/under for this question. 54% correctly took the over.

Question 4 – The AFC Players of Week 11 were Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, Raiders kicker Daniel Carlson and monster Von Miller of the Steelers upcoming opponent Denver Broncos. Over 90% correctly answered that no Steelers would be named this past week. So far in 2018, Steelers T.J. Watt (weeks 1 & 5), Ben Roethlisberger (weeks 3 & 10), and James Conner (week 8) have been named AFC players of the week. Former Steelers Emmanuel Sanders & Mike Mitchell both were honored week 7.

Question 5 – Neither quarterback was outstanding with Lamar Jackson passing for 150 yards to exceed Blake Bortles at 104. Bortles had a 72.5 quarterback rating compared to 70.1 for Jackson who had an interception. The most popular combination on this two-part question was Bortles & Bortles (60.3%). 68.3% got a point for picking Bortles to have the better quarterback rating. But only 22.6% picked Lamar to pass for more yards than Bortles.

As noted last week, there was opportunity to gain ground in the standings. Keneyeam was the sole 5-point weekly bonus winner for Week 7 for his prediction of James Washington only having 3 receptions over the 4 games ending with the Jaguars game. For Week 10, it took the very last play of the game and the single Steelers takeaway in the game to give Matt Manzo, Wes Lee, SkoolHouseRoxx, wa_steel & Dan Guthrie the 5-point weekly bonus. Top honors with 11 points in Week 11 were Matt Manzo, Brian Tollini and ImMikeD. Kudos to all.

The scoring frenzy placed Matt Manzo & ImMikeD within striking distance of the mysterious GreenBastard the leader since Week 1. Wes Lee climbed 10 places into a 5^th place tie. While Keneyeam and Brian Tollini had the biggest rise by gaining 21 & 28 places, respectively.

The Leaderboard after Week 11:

*New to leaderboard