2019 NFL Week 15: Steelers Friday Night Five Questions

Happy Friday to yinz and I sure hope the weekend is off to a great start for all.

This is a big weekend for the Pittsburgh Steelers as they can take over the No. 5 seed in the AFC with a win Sunday or night against the Buffalo Bills or potentially drop out of the Wild Card picture with a loss. While the Sunday night game against the Bills at Heinz Field isn’t a playoff game, it certainly has the feel of one. Heinz Field should be rocking Sunday night as the Steelers will look to go 6-0 in their Color Rush uniforms.

Not much is going on with me this weekend other than maybe going out Saturday during the day for a bite to eat. I’ve been real sick once again the last few weeks and am even headed off to see my doctor again right after I finish writing this post. I will get some very important blood lab results back today.

As usual, I have five questions for yinz to answer starting now and up until the kickoff of the Sunday night game between the Steelers and the Bills. I look forward to reading the guesses this week.

Peace and love and Go Steelers!

1 – Over/under 6.5 combined offensive plays of 20 yards or longer Sunday night between the Steelers and the Bills?

2 – Over/under 201.5 total passing yards for Steelers quarterback Devlin Hodges Sunday night against the Bills?

3 – Will either team have more than a 10.5-point lead at any point during the Sunday night game between the Steelers and the Bills?

4 – True or false: The Steelers streak of 20 consecutive games with at least one giveaway/turnover will end Sunday night at Heinz Field against the Bills?

5 – Will the team that scores first Sunday night ultimately win the game?

Recap of 2019 NFL Week 14 Friday Night 5 Questions

Question 1: Duck Hodges passed for 152 yards against the Arizona Cardinals. He did not come close to passing over 238.5 yards but did complete 16 of 19 passes. The Cardinals sacked him three times and he ran the ball five times for 34 yards. Mike Tomlin stated that the team does not have any designed quarterback run plays. So, Hodges intended to pass 27 times. His extrapolated total passing yardage would have been at most 229.5 yards if you took his passing yards per attempt so far this season (8.5) times his intended passing plays (27) in the game. Steelers Depot respondents scored well on this question with 49.2% receiving a point by taking the under.

Question 2: Many pundits expected Vance McDonald to experience a breakout game due to the Cardinals poor coverage of tight ends this season. McDonald was averaging 28.9 receiving yards a game as a Pittsburgh Steeler coming into this game. So, an over/under of 35.5 yards against a team with weak coverage against tight ends was reasonable. However, Vance caught his only target for three yards and was out of the game by halftime due to a concussion. 53.2% of respondents scored a point by taking the under.

Question 3: The Steelers were averaging scoring 20 points a game and the Cardinals 21 coming into this contest. The defense held Arizona to 17 points and the offense plus special teams scored 23. The Steelers kicked field goals on two of their trips into the red zone. Score a touchdown in one of those instances and we would be just over 43.5 total points in the game. But that did not happen so the 71% who took the under score a point.

Question 4: This binary question had three elements. Would one of three events happen during the game? A missed extra point (XPM), a successful two-point conversion (2PM), or a safety. Going into this game, Chris Boswell was 23 for 23 on extra point attempts. Zane Gonzalez was 21 for 22. I believe Pittsburgh attempted only one 2PM this season which failed. Arizona has three 2PM in three attempts. The Steelers have given up two safeties but recorded none. While no safeties have been scored in a Cardinals game so far this season. The likelihood of any of these events occurring was low. 79% of respondents picked up an easy point.

Question 5: Prior to this game, Pittsburgh scored nine of 24 touchdowns from 30 yards or more from the goal line. Arizona had scored four of 25 touchdowns by the same benchmark. Diontae Johnson’s 85-yard punt return easily exceeded the mark. 85.5% got the point.

Previous Weeks: There are 15- and 5-point bonuses up for grabs from week one by correctly predicting the Steelers and Browns regular season records. Both the Steelers and the Browns won. Some folks lowballed their records. So, 78.0% are still in the running for the 15 point and 73.2% for the 5-point bonuses. 63.4% could end up with both.

Nine folks hit the weekly five-point bonus this week by answering all five questions correctly! That is a record! Kudos to SJT63 who hit for the second week in a row. Congratulations to the other bonus winners: PittShawnC, Kjacksonpgh, Steely McBeam, Jeremy, IC in Cincy, Michael Bowser, Kdog, and ManRayX. 21 other respondents just missed the cut by one question. Keep answering folks, you’re just missing the weekly five-point bonus by a hair.

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

ManRayX remains in first place on the leaderboard for ninth week but in a row. He hit the 5-point bonus otherwise SJT63 would have overtaken him. PittShawnC took over third place on the strength of his bonus points. Can ManRayX hang on to the lead for the last three weeks of the race? We are heading down the stretch! Many others just a few points from being in position to win, place, or show for the money at the end of the season.

Keneyeam returns to the leaderboard after being off since Week 11. IC in Cincy powered up 25 places in his first appearance since Week 8. Well done! Wes Lee dropped out for the first time in a long time. He took too many overs this week.

Please welcome Heath_girl83, Doctor Noah, Chad Weiss, Tracy Johnson, and Taj who answered for the first time this season. Keep answering folks, we’ll have a new playoff contest starting as soon as the regular season concludes.

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. With three weeks left the top 50 placeholders still have a mathematical shot at catching the top three.

Leaderboard after week 11:

*New to Leaderboard

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.