Happy Friday to yinz and I hope the holiday season has gone well for all. Welcome to Week 16 of the 2018 NFL regular season as well.
The 8-5-1 Pittsburgh Steelers will play the 12-2 New Orleans Saints on the road Sunday and that will certainly be a tough test for the team and maybe their toughest one of the season. Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has yet to beat the Saints in New Orleans during his career and Sunday might be his last shot to do so. This really should be a great game to watch on CBS on Sunday and I bet the television ratings for the contest will be through the roof.
On Saturday, we have two NFL games worth watching as Steelers fans with the night game between the Baltimore Ravens and Los Angeles Chargers being the more important of the two. Should the Ravens beat the Chargers Saturday night and the Steelers lose on Sunday to the Saints, Pittsburgh will surrender the AFC North lead. Additionally, the Steelers could potentially exit week 16 as the No. 8 seed in the AFC with a loss combined with wins by the Ravens, Tennessee Titans and Indianapolis Colts.
As usual, I have five questions for yinz to answer ahead of the Steelers game kicking off on Sunday and hopefully several will do just that in the comments below.
Have a great and safe weekend and peace and love to all of yinz! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all as well.
Go Steelers!
1 – The Saints are averaging 10.1 points scored per game in the second quarter so far this season. Will they exceed that average Sunday at home against the Steelers?
2 – Will the Steelers offense have more than 9 rushing attempts by a non-quarterback in the first half of Sunday’s road game against the Saints?
3 – Will Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan be credited with at least one full sack Sunday against the Steelers?
4 – The Steelers had five wide receivers on the field quite a bit in their Week 15 home win. Tell me exactly the number of plays (no plays wiped out by flags do not count) they will have five wide receivers on the field Sunday against the Saints.
5 – True or false: Referee Craig Wrolstad and his crew will call and assess more than 38.73% of all total penalties in the game on the Saints on Sunday in New Orleans.
Recap of Week 15 Friday Night 5 Questions
Question 1 – The Steelers held the Patriots to under 28 points at Heinz Field just last season; so why not this season? At least that’s what 36% of Steelers Depot respondents thought who got this correct.
Question 2 – 68% said JuJu would have more receptions than AB. 32% said AB would have more. Both had 4 catches so neither had more. No one called a push so no points awarded which means no one wins the 5-point weekly bonus. Heath Miller did get a point for predicting the correct number of receptions.
Question 3 – How sweet it was for Rob Gronkowski to register only 21 receiving yards on Sunday. Sweeter more for the 44% of respondents who predicted he would not have at least 90 receiving yards against the Steelers.
Question 4 – Jaylen Samuels & Stevan Ridley combined for 22 rushing attempts against the Patriots. On top of the win, the 76% who said the Steelers running backs would carry the ball more than 15 times got a point.
Question 5 – Ben Roethlisberger & Tom Brady combined for three interceptions in the game. Ben’s first went 22 yards beyond the line of scrimmage from the New England 46-yard line to their 24-yard line. His second went 9 yards from the 50 to New England’s 41-yard line. Brady’s interception was from his 16-yard line to the 4 so was 12 yards. So, the 53% who said neither quarterback would throw an interception that travelled more than 30 yards in the air beyond the line of scrimmage got the point.
Phil Brenneman II, SJT63, Hoptown & ThePointe all had high scores for Week 15 with 5 points apiece. The tie in receptions between AB & JuJu prevented them from having a shot at the 5-point weekly bonus. Kudos!
Week 14 – The 26 respondents that predicted the Steelers would beat the Patriots picked up an additional point. Only 22.4% predict the Steelers will beat the Saints in New Orleans this Sunday. Let’s hope the minority rules!
Week 11 – The 2019 NFL Pro Bowl team has been announced. Six Steelers were selected: Antonio Brown, James Conner, Maurkice Pouncey, Dave DeCastro, Alejandro Villanueva & Cam Heyward. So, the most points that could be picked up for this question from Week 11 is six. B&G was the only person to pick all six Pittsburgh pro Bowlers. However, his shotgun approach backfired since he entered 13 names so ended up with no points. Tonyamos7 & yours truly got five points by naming five players, all of which were selected to the Pro Bowl.
There were some shifts in the leaderboard. Brian Tollini & Ted Webb fell off but are just a point off the pace. SJT63 climbed back on the board after being absent for several weeks. ImMikeD hopped over Matt Manzo to try to catch the mysterious GreenBastard. The Pittsburgh-New England game was the highest rated game last week but we had the least number of respondents to the Friday night Questions all year – is there a correlation? Let’s go people!
The Leaderboard after Week 15:
| SCREEN NAME | POINTS | PLACE | CHANGE |
| GreenBastard | 77 | 1ST | |
| ImMikeD | 70 | 2ND | +1 |
| Matt Manzo | 67 | 3RD | -1 |
| don2727 | 66 | 4TH | |
| ND_Steel | 62 | 5TH | +2 |
| Beaver Falls Hosiery | 60 | 6TH | +6 |
| Wes Lee | 58 | 7TH (TIE) | -2 |
| DirtDawg1964 | 58 | 7TH (TIE) | -1 |
| keneyeam | 58 | 7TH (TIE) | +2 |
| B&G | 57 | 10TH | -1 |
| IC in Cincy | 56 | 11TH (TIE) | -2 |
| Phil Brenneman II | 56 | 11TH (TIE) | +3 |
| 6 ring circus | 55 | 13TH (TIE) | -1 |
| hoptown | 55 | 13TH (TIE) | +4 |
| Earl | 55 | 13TH (TIE) | +1 |
| pittfan | 55 | 13TH (TIE) | +4 |
| Jeremy | 55 | 13TH (TIE) | +7 |
| Greg Payne | 55 | 13TH (TIE) | +7 |
| AndrewWoo | 54 | 19TH | -12 |
| Marcel Chris Chauvet | 53 | 20TH (TIE) | -3 |
| SJT63 | 53 | 20TH (TIE) | *+3 |
*New to leaderboard
