Thursday Night Football Picks: Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns

Thursday Night Football Picks - Analysis for Cleveland
The Browns played one of their better games last week which says a lot because they lost. Still, Brady Quinn actually looked like he can play football in this league and the lowly Browns were able to give the Chargers a game. They have a key injury with one of their best players, Shaun Rogers, now out for the season. Brodney Pool is also missing in their Secondary. Running back Jerome Harrison gave the ground game a nice little spark running well for Jamal Lewis.

Thursday Night Football Picks - Analysis for Pittsburgh
The Steelers come into this game with their tail between their legs after losing at home to the Raiders. Losers of 4 in a row, last season's champions are clearly not the same football team without All Pro safety Troy Polomalu. They have given up an alarming number of big pass plays, even making Bruce Gradkowski look good last week.

Thursday Night Football Picks - Head to Head Analysis
The Steelers are going to try and run the ball with Mendenhall against the Browns. With the absence of Shaun Rogers in the middle, an already poor run defense should have a tough time stopping the Steelers' running game. Hines Ward will probably miss this game but Mike Wallace can step in for a bigger role. With the weather most likely to be very cold, the Browns would also like to run the football but that won't get them anywhere. The Steelers 3-4 defense led by James Harrison is strong against the run and will have no trouble stopping the Cleveland running game. As a result the Browns are going to have to pass the football if they want to do anything on offense. While Quinn looked better last week, on Thursday Night Football the Steelers are going to create pressure and force him into bad decisions. Pittsburgh is going to come in angry after Sunday's loss to the Raiders and take it out on the worst franchise in football.

Thursday Night Football Picks - Prediction
The Steelers are going to go into Thursday Night Football focused and motivated. They need this game to stay in the playoff picture and are a much better team than Cleveland. If they aren't already covering the spread by the 4th quarter, they'll probably get a defensive touchdown or interception late. Either way, when it's all said and done, the Steelers will cover the point spread of -10 in Cleveland on Thursday Night Football.

Pick: Steelers -10

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