USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Con
The NFL schedule makers surely didn’t anticipate the 8-2 Pittsburgh Steelers and 2-8 Cleveland Browns would have such disparate records heading into Thursday night’s prime-time showdown in Cleveland.
The Steelers have exceeded expectations, and the Browns have been supremely disappointing.
The total in this game has steamed down to 36.5 at the time of writing after opening as high as 41 on Sunday.
The weather forecast in Cleveland calls for 25-to-35 mph winds and a 90 percent chance of rain — this could be a sloppy game.
I don’t have an official pick on the side or total here, but I’ll give a brief overview of the matchup before getting into my player prop selection.
The Steelers offense was stuck in the mud on Sunday, finishing with a 32 percent success rate — that would rank worst in the league by far this year.
The team relied on its defense and special teams to pull off a crucial home win over the Ravens.
Meanwhile, the Cleveland offense struggled to run the ball on Sunday in New Orleans.
It became an aerial assault for Jameis Winston, who threw for 395 yards and two touchdowns in a losing effort.
Some intriguing trends are at play here. Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is 34-41-2 ATS (45 percent) as a road favorite, including 22-35-2 ATS (39 percent) as a road favorite over a field goal.
Tomlin is also 85-65-1 (57 percent) to the Under in road games in his career, including 55-28-1 (66 perent) since 2015.
This is a divisional slugfest in brutal weather conditions, and points should come at a premium.
I lean toward the home underdog and the Under.
However, my favorite bet on the board is on a player prop:
Jerome Ford Over 29.5 rushing + receiving yards (-115, bet365)
On Sunday, we saw a significant shift in the Browns’ offensive strategy as Jerome Ford played on 56 percent of snaps compared to 30 percent for Nick Chubb.
Much of that was due to the game becoming a blowout in the second half, as Ford is a much more dynamic pass-catcher.
However, Chubb is coming off a significant injury, and Kevin Stefanski said the team wants to manage his workload during a lost season.
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Ford played almost all the third-down and two-minute drill snaps on Sunday, and that role isn’t going anywhere as the superior pass-catcher.
Ford had a 51 percent route-run rate compared to 11.8 percent for Chubb on Sunday. However, he also started to see some early down runs in the second quarter, even before the game became a blowout.
As I discussed above, the weather in Cleveland could heavily impact the downfield passing game, which would benefit Ford’s upside in the receiving game.
Even if we’re conservative with projecting Ford’s snaps, he has gone over this rushing + receiving prop in nine of 11 games with 30-50 percent of snaps dating back to last season.
That’s an 82 percent hit rate with an average of 61.5 yards in those games.