Pittsburgh Steelers Double Digit Favorites Against Browns On Thursday

NFL News - December 7th, 2009 - Written by Jimmy

With things going badly for the Steelers, week 14 is looking like a win or go home week for Pittsburgh.

Since losing the last 4 games, the most recent to Oakland, the Steelers are deep in the hole looking up at the class of the AFC and their chance of making the playoffs hinges around this Thursday's game against the Cleveland Browns.

After declaring they are going to "unleash hell" in December, the Steelers did not get off to the start they wanted to this month.

Prior to last week, if one were to look at the December on the Pittsburgh Steelers Schedule, the first two weeks would likely have been put in the win column with games against Oakland and Cleveland. But after Oakland shocked Pittsburgh 27-24 last week on a touchdown pass with :09 remaining, the Steelers went from unleashing hell, to praying for wins.

At 6-6, the Pittsburgh Steelers have virtually no chance of winning the AFC North as long as the Bengals continue to play well. At this point, Cincinnati has a three game lead, plus owns the tie-breaker, which most likely leaves Pittsburgh looking to scratch out a wild card berth.

"I can't even describe how frustrating it is right now to be 6-6," Pittsburgh linebacker James Farrior said in an interview following the Oakland loss. "We thought we'd be doing a lot better at this point. But we are what our record says we are."

Cleveland is a team searching for any answer they can find. At 1-11, any hopes of making post season played have long since expired. The Browns must now turn their focus to the future, and start auditioning players who want to play for the Browns next season.

Browns' QB Brady Quinn played a nice game against the San Diego Chargers in week 13 going 25 of 45 for 271-yards, 3 touchdowns and no interceptions. Despite the effort, the Browns lost the game.

The sub-par Browns have now lost seven games in a row since beginning this year at 1-4. Going back to last season, the Browns have lost 19 of their last 21 games.

Odd makers have the Steelers as 10 point favorites to take down the Browns on the road this week, with the over/under resting at at 36 1/2, meaning they feel this would lean toward being a lower scoring affair.

In their previous meeting this year, Pittsburgh defeated Cleveland 27-14. In that contest, the Steelers were a 14 point favorite to beat Cleveland at home, and failed to cover. The games total of 41 went the over as the over/under sat at 37 1/2 prior to kickoff. Roethlisberger put up a season high 417 passing yards on the Cleveland pass defense.

NFL Weekly Betting Trends show that Cleveland is 2-7-1 ATS the spread in their last 10 games at home. Interestingly enough, Pittsburgh is 2-6 ATS in their last eight road games.