2018 NFL Divisional Round Weekend: Steelers Friday Night Five Questions

Happy Friday to yinz and welcome to the second NFL playoff weekend of the 2018 season.

It’s been another crazy week with the Pittsburgh Steelers and now we’ll go into the weekend wondering once again if the team will lose offensive line coach Mike Munchak to the Denver Broncos. It also sounds like all three coordinators will keep their jobs and that Keith Butler will now coach the outside linebackers in addition to running the defense.

Steelers team president Art Rooney II had some interesting things to say about wide receiver Antonio Brown on Thursday and that was followed up on Friday with the player posting a long Instagram video in which he said more information is on the way.

The Senior Bowl is almost and this year we’ll have Daniel Valente down in Mobile, AL covering it for the site. we also will start our annual player draft profiles next week.

As usual, I have five questions for yinz to answer during this quiet Friday night and I look forward to reading all of them.

Have a safe and happy weekend and enjoy all the games. Thank you for visiting the site as well.

Peace and love, peace and love!

1 – Name for me one top college draft prospect the Steelers might be interested in this year that you would like to see profiled and broken down on the site in the very near future.

2 – Will Brown post some sort of an apology for his recent actions on any of his social media accounts by the time we post next week’s Friday night five questions?

3 – Last week there was a total of 145 points scored in the four Wild Card games. Will this week’s total be greater than or less than that 145 number?

4 – How many combined sacks and interceptions will happen during the four playoff games this weekend?

5 – Name the winners of the four NFL Divisional Round games that will take place this weekend. (Must get all four correct to receive credit)

Indianapolis Colts at Kansas City Chiefs
Dallas Cowboys at Los Angeles Rams
Los Angeles Chargers at New England Patriots
Philadelphia Eagles at New Orleans Saints

Recap of Wildcard Weekend Friday Night 5 Questions

Question 1: It is early Friday morning on the east coast of the United States, and Keith Butler is still the Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator. If you are reading this and he remains on the Steelers staff, then you are part of the 56.8% of last week’s respondents who said that he would. Points scored for this question will be added into next week’s results.

Question 2: Art Rooney II made it clear that, “All options are on the table. We have two months to go before we can do anything. There’s no sense making the decision now.” 86.4% of last week’s respondents believe that the Steelers will not trade Brown prior to paying him his $2.5 million roster bonus due to him in the middle of March. Nor sure if Mr. Rooney’s remarks swayed any opinions but the ball is squarely in Brown’s hands. This was a non-scoring question.

Question 3: Most folks felt that Antonio Brown, David DeCastro and Cam Heyward all had good seasons in 2018. You could argue that two had some drop-off in overall performance between 2017 and 2018: Brown played one more game in 2018 but had 236 less receiving yards. His yards per game average dipped from 109.5 in 2017 to 86.5 in 2018. Heyward also played one more game in 2018 and his sack total dropped from 16 to 10. He also had less tackles for a loss, 16 in 2017 10 in 2018. DeCastro was penalized less in 2018 (3 times to 6 in 2017) and gave up less sacks. Just 1.5 in 2017 but NONE in 2018. He did play one less game in 2018 playing 958 (85.84%) of the Steelers offensive snaps. In 2017, he played in 1047 (94.67%) offensive snaps. 45.4% of respondents perceived Cam Heyward to have the biggest drop off several citing that he was less dominant on the line of scrimmage. Antonio Brown got 40.9% of the vote though it might have been less if he had played in that last game. DeCastro only had 9% which appears to be consistent with the overall performance. The big question left on the table is whether all three will be wearing Black & Gold in 2019. This was a non-scoring question.

Question 4: The New Orleans Saints emerged as the overwhelming favorite to win the Super Bowl among Steelers Depot respondents with 59.1% of the vote. The Los Angeles Rams were the runner-up with only 18.2%. The Chicago Bears who were upset by the Philadelphia Eagles were favored by 6.8%. Others that were mentioned were the San Diego Chargers, Kansas City Chiefs and one holdout for the New England Patriots. No one picked the Eagles, Dallas Cowboys or Indianapolis Colts who remain in contention.

Question 5: Nobody correctly predicted the winners of all four NFL Wildcard games. 54.5% did pick the Colts to beat Houston Texans. 27.3% got the Cowboys-Seahawks winner right. 68.2% were on the Chargers side over the Crows. But 81.8% were on the wrong side of the Bears-Eagles match-up. That prevented anyone from getting credit toward the 5-point weekly bonus.

We are getting to the final few weeks of the contest and the GreenBastard is still in first place. Kudos. A group is just behind trying to overcome his lead. Can it be done? A couple new folks appear on the leaderboard while two who were on almost all season fell off. Let’s go folks! Finish Strong.

Leaderboard after Wildcard Weekend:

*new to leaderboard