2019 NFL Week 8: Steelers Friday Night Five Questions

Happy Friday to yinz and as usual, I hope that everyone’s weekend is off to a fantastic start.

The Pittsburgh Steelers will host the Miami Dolphins Monday night at Heinz Field and they’ll do so while wearing their Color Rush uniforms. It’s a game that the Steelers better win.

Not a lot is going on with me this weekend outside of watching a lot of football on both Saturday and Sunday. Last Friday night my wife and I went down to the older section of Vegas and took in the bright lights of the city atop the Stratosphere for the first time in a long time. We then went down to Fremont Street for an hour and it was packed. It was good to get away for a little while to clear my mind some.

As usual, I have five questions for yinz to answer starting tonight and through the kickoff of the Monday night game between the Steelers and the Dolphins. The great David Orochena continues to keep score of all answers and the weekly leaderboard and we certainly do thank him for doing so. If not already doing so, make sure to follow David on Twitter at @subBurgher. You won’t go wrong if you do.

Have a safe and blessed weekend and thank you to all who visited the site this past week. We look forward to attempting to keep all yinz entertained the remainder of the weekend.

Go Steelers and peace and love, peace and love!

1 – Will the combined offensive and defensive snaps played Monday night by fullback Roosevelt Nix and outside linebacker Olasunkanmi Adeniyi be over or under 31.5?

2 – How many times will Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick be sacked Monday night by the Steelers defense?

3 – Over/under 260.5 passing yards for Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph Monday night against the Dolphins?

4 – How many explosive plays of 20 yards or longer will the Steelers offense register Monday night against the Dolphins?

5 – Over/under 16.5-points largest lead by either team Monday night?

Recap of 2019 NFL Week 7 Friday Night 5 Questions

Question 1: I thought the answer might be under after the first 3 quarters of the Bengals-Jaguars game. But then they combined for 25 points in the 4^th quarter which exceeded the scoring output in the first 3 quarters. It took until the 4^th quarter of the Ravens-Seahawks game but 13 points in that final quarter put them over the top. A total of 90 points were scored in the two games, over the 83.5 points in the question. If Baltimore did not recover & return the 4^th quarter fumble for a TD, then it may have ended up just under. Steelers Depot respondents did well with this question. 63% picked up a point by taking the over.

Question 2: NFL quarterbacks threw 25.5 interceptions per week going into the 7^th week. In week 6, quarterbacks threw 32 interceptions. Going into Monday Night’s game only 15 interceptions had been thrown. Tom Brady threw one and Sam Darnold four bringing the Week 7 interception total to 20. Steelers Depot respondents did well with 79.6% saying that there would not be at least 28 interceptions thrown in week 7.

Question 3: NFL teams converted only 16 2-point conversion attempts in weeks 1-6. So, that equates to 2.67 successful 2-point plays per week. Depot respondents anywhere from 0-7 successful 2-point conversions in week 7 with the median response 3.  I counted three successful 2-point conversions out of 5 attempts. So far this season, NFL teams have converted 19 2-point plays out of 43 attempts for a 44.2% success rate. 30.2% of respondents correctly answered this question. Respondent Steven Small just missed a clean sweep of the questions by predicting 4 successful 2-point plays. That cost him scoring the 5-point weekly bonus.

Question 4: Philip Rivers averaged the most yards passing with 297.5 yards per pass coming into week 7. However, he was playing the stingiest defense among the four quarterbacks. Tennessee was averaging giving up only 217 passing yards per game. Aaron Rodgers was averaging the least passing yards per game at 265.0 yards per pass. But Oakland was averaging the second highest passing yards per game among the four opponents at 263 passing yards given up per game. Just Baltimore was higher averaging 269 passing yards given up per game which was 25^th in the league. That should have been good news for the 26.4% of respondents who picked Russell Wilson to pass for the most yards. But he only had 241 passing yards which was the least among the four quarterbacks. Deshaun Watson had 308 and 26.4% of the vote. Rivers had 329 yards and 24.5% of the vote. While Rodgers had the least number of voters at 22.6%, he had the most passing yards with 429.

Question 5: The Bengals did their duty, the Ravens did not. Cincinnati kept it close until the 4^th quarter. Jacksonville then scored 18 points to put the game away including a pick-6 off Andy Dalton. In Seattle, the critical play came on 4^th down in the 3^rd quarter. The Ravens trotted out their field goal team to break a 13-13 tie but then called a timeout. John Harbaugh gave Lamar Jackson an opportunity to channel his anger at a botched play. Jackson responded with a touchdown and Baltimore never looked back. A 4^th quarter fumble recovery returned for a touchdown cemented the win. 25.9% got this correct.

Previous Weeks: There are 15- & 5-point bonus up for grabs from week 1 by correctly predicting the Steelers & Browns regular season records for those that answered. Both Pittsburgh & Cleveland had a bye so 95% of respondents remain in the running to collect all 20 of those bonus points.

No one scored the weekly 5-point bonus by answering all the questions correctly. There were four respondents who missed by one question: Steven Small, mentioned earlier plus Slim Stew, Jamie Barnhart, & Vincent Dale.  Slim missed out by only predicting one 2-point conversion. While Jamie & Vincent’s miscue was picking the quarterback with most passing yards to be Wilson and Watson respectively.

ManRayX remains in first place on the leaderboard. He even extended his lead by a point. Kudos!

Two folks fell off the leaderboard. One took a break on the bye week. The other had tied their fortunes to the holiday reveler.

Five respondents are back on the leaderboard after a 1-week hiatus. Welcome Jamie Barnhart, DirtDawg1964, IC in Cincy, don2727, & MP back. Let’s see if they can stay and even launch a bid to reach the top.

Don’t forget to respond this weekend so that you all can maintain the pace. It just takes one good set of answers to make a significant move toward the prize money.

Leaderboard after week 7:

• New to Leaderboard