Game Analysis

Pittsburgh (-2.5/-3) at CLEVELAND

Lean – Cleveland (+3 -115) or better

Cleveland is a surprising 2-1 under first year head coach Todd Monken, as the defense has remained solid despite not having Myles Garrett this season while the offense has been surprisingly not terrible with Deshaun Watson at quarterback.

Watson is throwing mostly short passes and his 68% completion rate has translated to a slightly below-average 5.9 yards per pass play. However, he’s a decent 18^th in EPA per play and 15^th in success rate among quarterbacks, which is significantly better than last year’s disastrous performance from the Cleveland quarterbacks. The rushing attack has been bad (just 3.5 ypr) and overall the Browns have managed just 4.9 ypr while ranking 21^st in EPA per play and 22^nd in success rate. Still, that’s much better than was expected.

The Steelers will once again be without CB Joey Porter Jr. (traded to Dallas) and Jalen Ramsey broke his wrist on the first series last week and is questionable to play, although he did play the rest of the game with the injury, which makes me think he’s likely to play in this game. If not, then there is depth issue with backup CB Brandin Echols likely out with a concussion and 3^rd-stringers Hardy and Kent already out.

Pittsburgh’s offense struggled mightily the first two weeks of the season but played better last week to raise their success rate to 40% for the season, which still ranks 26^th out of 32 teams (their EPA per play is much worse because of some very negative random plays). An injury to starting RB Rico Dowdle may have been a blessing in disguise as it has led to more carries for Jaylen Warren, who had 127 yards on 17 runs last week while Dowdle has averaged just 2.5 ypr on his 15 runs this season. That’s obviously a small sample and we know that Dowdle is a solid back (4.4 ypr career average) but Warren has averaged 4.8 ypr over his career and certainly has been in better form than Dowdle this year so far.

Cleveland’s defense isn’t as strong as it was last season when Garrett was the Defensive Player of the Year, but the Browns rank in the middle of the pack in both EPA per play allowed (right at 0.00) and success rate (43.4% ranks #16). The schedule has been 0.6 points per game easier than average for a defense (based on opposing offenses and weather conditions faced) but that unit is better than the Steelers’ offense.

My ratings favor Pittsburgh by just 1.4 points with 38.2 total points.