2019 NFL Week 11: Steelers Friday Night Five Questions

Happy Friday to yinz!

Welp, that Thursday night Pittsburgh Steelers game against the Cleveland Browns certainly left some lasting scars on my brain. Not only was the offensive play putrid Thursday night, the whole melee thing at the end of the game was just nuts and totally uncalled for. The Browns dont even know how to win correctly.

Oh well, on we go. The Steelers probably need to win at least four of their last six games to make the playoffs. Winning five of six should definitely get them in.

Not much on tap for me this weekend other than re-watching the Steelers game against the Browns nine more times. Hopefully the all-22 makes it out tonight.

As usual, I have five questions for yinz to answer on this Friday night and you have until the kickoff of the Sunday games to do so.

Also, thank you to all of yinz that visited the site this past week and we hope everyone enjoyed all of the content. Have a great and safe weekend and go Steelers.

1 – Pick the winner: Houston Texans at Baltimore Ravens

2 – Pick the winner: Indianapolis Colts at Jacksonville Jaguars

3 – True or false: Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey will have his three-game suspension reduced via the appeal process?

4 – How many two point conversions will be successful in the remaining Week 11 NFL games?

5 – The Cincinnati Bengals are averaging 15.2 points a game so far this season. Will they score more than that average Sunday against the Oakland Raiders?

Recap of 2019 NFL Week 10 Friday Night 5 Questions

ANNOUNCEMENT: After conferring with Steelers Depot headquarters, a decision was reached to declare the winners at the end of the regular season. Awards will be allocated as described at the beginning of the season. Then we will go into the playoffs that will run up to the Friday before the Super Bowl with a $50 winner take all pot for whomever is the best prognosticator in the postseason.

Question 1: There cannot be that many touchdowns in a 17-12 game. James Washington scored one touchdown and Minkah Fitzpatrick scored the other. Those two scores put the Steelers just under 2.5 touchdowns scored against the Los Angeles Rams. Just 40% of Steelers Depot respondents took the under and picked up a point.

Question 2: JuJu Smith-Schuster caught half of the six passes targeting him. The first pass bounced off his hands. He did have a great catch near the end zone that Mason Rudolph fired at him. JuJu’s 44 total receiving yards was well under 71.5. A lot of folks picked up points on this question, 90.1% of respondents took the under. Last week, respondents were 50/50 on whether he would have 80.5 receiving yards. Expectations are dropping, but perhaps that means teams won’t double team him as much. Is he due a breakout game?

Question 3: We had to expect more passing because of all the injuries to running backs. Mason Rudolph attempted 38 passes, a season high, completing 22 of them. If the receivers didn’t drop so many balls, he would have been way over 241.5 passing yards.  Rudolph finished with 242 passing yards just a half yard over the benchmark. That half yard cost a lot of folks a point as only 27.7% took the over.

Question 4: The Steelers and the Rams had 30 combined third down opportunities. The league average for 3^rd down conversions is 39%. Both teams are just under the league average so should have converted at least 11 first downs out of the 30 opportunities. Instead, they combined for six well under 9.5. Surprisingly, Steelers depleted offense converted 31.5% of their first down opportunities. The Rams just one of 14. A testament of how dominant the Steelers defense performance was. Unusually, Sean McVay, who pundits have anointed a coaching genius, chose to run the ball on 3^rd & 19 & 3^rd & 17 plays. I wonder how Steelers fans would react if Mike Tomlin made similar play calls? The Rams did not convert on those two plays and punted the ball instead. A paltry 12.3% of respondents called this over/under correctly.

Question 5: Johnny Holton did not show up on the stat sheet at all. Not even one target. However, Mike Tomlin admitted that the play-action play that resulted in the safety was intended to go to Holton. Will Holton catch his first pass wearing Black & Gold this Thursday night? We will see. 56.9% of respondents got the point for saying that he would not register his first reception of the season against the Rams.

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. Pittsburgh & Cleveland both won this past weekend but Browns beat Steelers Thursday night.  So, 79.3% are still in the running for the 15 point & 96.3% for the 5-point bonuses. 78.1% could end up with both.

Please, welcome Josh Gustad & Jason who responded to this season’s contest for the first time. Keep answering!

No one hit the weekly 5-point bonus this week by answered all five questions correctly! The GreenBastard, Keneyeam, & Jason W all just missed by one. All three took the under on Mason Rudolph’s passing yards. One yard separating them from scoring the weekly bonus.

Here are the consensus responses of Steelers Depot respondents compared to the correct answers:

ManRayX remains in first place on the leaderboard for 5^th week in a row. Jamie Barnhart in 2^nd 6 points off lead. PittShawnC, Andy N, Slim Stew, & Jason W in a tie for 3^rd place.

Two respondents are back on the leaderboard. Earl is back after a one-week absence. Keneyeam is making his first appearance this season after lurking just below the leaderboard for most of the season. Just one person dropped out this week. A bad week saw FlaFan47 miss the cut after 8 consecutive weeks on the board. He’ll be back.

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 8:

• New to Leaderboard