Week 8 Breakdown

Battle of Titans


The Steelers (5-2) return home to face the only single loss team left in the NFL, the Patriots (5-1) The Steelers are coming off a win over the Cardinals in Arizona, while the Patriots are coming off a bye week. Both teams have used a potent passing offense to compensate for uncharacteristic defensive play, so most people are expecting these two teams to shoot it out.

Big Ben had his first game of the season without a turnover last week and the run defense for the Steelers has steadily got better over the last few weeks. The Steelers will still be dealing with a lot of injuries, but the players who have stepped in have played well enough to win.

The Patriots have to be worrying about their defense who is giving up a lot of yards and has played poorly all season long. Tom Brady has played great this season and against a Steelers defense who has only picked off two passes, you have to believe he is going to put up big numbers.

The Steelers have held a slight advantage over the Patriots going 14-11 against them all time. The record looks even better when the Steelers are at home going 10-8. When you dip into the games those numbers become a bit more clouded though; The Steelers are 1-2 against them in playoff games, two of those games being losses in AFC Championships and the most telling statistic they are 2-5 against Tom Brady all time, 1-4 against him in Pittsburgh. The last home game against the Patriots was last season's 39-26 beating in week 9.

PATRIOTS SEASON STATS:
Tom Brady- 160 of 237 2,163 yards 16 touchdowns 8 interceptions
*Brady has not thrown an interception only twice this season.

Benjarvis Green-Ellis- 91 carries for 391 yards and 5 touchdowns
*The "law firm" only has one hundred yard and multi-touchdown game this year.

Wes Welker- 51 catches for 785 yards and 6 touchdowns
*Last season Gronkowski burnt the Steelers for three scores.

Defense- The Pats are giving up a league worse 423.7 yards per game, but are tenth giving up 22 points per game. Unlike the Steelers though who have a league worse -9 turnover differential, the Pats have a +1 differential picking off 8 passes and sacking opposing quarterbacks ten times.

INJURY REPORT
Chris Hoke- out; James Harrison- out; Doug Legursky- out; Jason Worilds- out; Hines Ward- questionable; James Farrior- questionable;

FINAL TAKE
As much as I want to see what everyone else sees, I don't see us winning the game. The Patriots defense is giving up a ton of yards but they are still picking off passes and forcing turnovers. Big Ben has made a bunch of mistakes this year, sometimes even without being under pressure and he might get extremely cocky like he did after the first quarter of the Indianapolis game. The fact is that the Steelers need a running game to control the clock and prevent getting into a shootout with Tom Brady and they haven't got it going. Mendenhall is inconsistent and a second rate back at best and without him getting into gear or Isaac Redman taking over, the Steelers can't control the clock. I hate to say it but I don't see a win going into the Ravens rematch.

PATRIOTS WIN: 27-24