Tag: NFL

Steelers-Browns odds: Cleveland favored in TNF battle with Pittsburgh

Previewing Thursday Night Football’s Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns sports betting odds and lines, with NFL Week 11 picks and tips.

The Pittsburgh Steelers (5-4) and Cleveland Browns (3-6) clash in an AFC North battle in Week 11’s Thursday Night Football matchup at First Energy Stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 8:20 p.m. ET. We analyze the Steelers-Browns odds and sports betting lines within, while providing sports betting tips and advice on this matchup.

Steelers at Browns: Week 11 preview, betting trends and notes

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  • The Steelers enter Week 11 as winners of four straight games, including a 17-12 upset of the Los Angeles Rams on home field in Week 10.
  • The Browns snapped a four-game losing streak with a 19-16 home win over the Buffalo Bills.
  • Cleveland ranks 26th in the NFL with 19.0 points per game. Pittsburgh is 19th with an average of 21.4 points per game.
  • The Browns are 19th with 348.4 total yards of offense per game. The Steelers are 28th with 288.8 total yards. Cleveland averages 40 more rushing yards per game.
  • The Browns allow 24.6 points per game while the Steelers hold the opposition to just 20.1. Pittsburgh allows an average of 332.2 yards of offense to Cleveland’s 356.0.
  • The Steelers defense has not allowed a rushing touchdown on 84 carries since Week 6.
  • Pittsburgh ranks second in the NFL with a plus-13 turnover differential. Cleveland is minus-8.
  • The Steelers rank second with 33.0 sacks this season.

Steelers at Browns: Key injuries

Steelers RB James Conner (shoulder) sat out Week 10.

Browns DL Olivier Vernon (knee) missed Sunday’s game.

Steelers at Browns: Odds, betting lines and prediction

Odds via BetMGM; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated Monday at 10:45 a.m. ET.

Prediction

Browns 24, Steelers 20

Moneyline (?)

The Browns got their first home win of the season in Week 10 and are 1-3 at First Energy Stadium. Pittsburgh is 1-2 on the road. Back CLEVELAND (-149) as a conservative home favorite on the short week with no travel.

Against the Spread (?)

The BROWNS (-2.5, -120) are just 2-6-1 overall against the spread. They’ve lost by an average of 5.6 points per game and fall 4.9 points shy of the cover. Pittsburgh (+2.5, +100) is 6-3-0 and covers by an average of 1.6 points.

With the projection of a field goal, however, take the home side as they’ll need to win by just three points for a $10 bet to return a profit of $8.33. The same wager on the moneyline nets a $6.71 return.

Over/Under (?)

Both teams are coming off low-scoring games in Week 10, as Cleveland and Pittsburgh played to point totals of 35 and 29 points, respectively. It followed the season trend for both sides of playing below the projected total.

Thursday’s number of 40.5 seems like an over-correction for a divisional clash. Take the OVER (-120).

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Esten’s NFL betting record: 23-29

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Bucs claim Aaron Stinnie off waivers

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are currently in the midst of more roster moves.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have officially claimed offensive guard Aaron Stinnie off waivers. In the midst of the transaction, the Bucs waived Nate Trewyn to make room on the team’s 53-man roster.

Stinnie joins the Buccaneers after being released from the Titans earlier this week. His stint with the Titans includes seeing action in one game last year and three this year. However, he hasn’t played the last six games.

The 6-foot-2, 312 pound powerhouse made Tennessee’s roster in 2018 after a successful college career at James Madison. He originally joined the league as an undrafted free agent.

According to the Bucs’ official website, Stinnie has experience playing interior line and tackle which should hopefully ignite a spark in the Bucs offensive line.

 

Rob Havenstein, Brandin Cooks ruled out for Week 11

Sean McVay said both players will be out this week against the Bears.

The injury bug has bitten the Los Angeles Rams hard the last few weeks and it’s really taking a toll on the offense. Not only is center Brian Allen out for the year with an MCL injury, but Rob Havenstein has a knee injury of his own.

Sean McVay announced Monday that Havenstein and Brandin Cooks have both already been ruled out for Week 11 against the Chicago Bears.

Havenstein could be out multiple weeks with the meniscus injury, and Cooks is still recovering from his second concussion of the season.

David Edwards slid over to right tackle after Havenstein went down. That pushed Coleman Shelton into the lineup with the starters.

Austin Blythe replaced Allen at center with Austin Corbett filling in at left guard. Put simply, the offensive line is a mess right now.

It doesn’t help that the Rams will face the Bears’ dominant defensive front on Sunday night, led by Khalil Mack on the outside.

Good, bad, and ugly from the Packers’ victory over the Panthers

We recap the good, bad, and ugly moments from the Green Bay Packers 24-16 win over the Carolina Panthers.

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Following a stinker of a game against the Los Angeles Chargers, the Green Bay Packers returned home to Lambeau Field, where winter arrived just in time to help the Packers against the Carolina Panthers. The Packers rode the likes of Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams to a victory, beating the Panthers 24-16. Sunday’s game had a little bit of everything, but more importantly, it gave Green Bay another signature win before their bye week.

Thanks to the win, the Packers are now 8-2, and will head into their bye week as one of the best teams in the NFC. As they get healthy and aim to fix some mistakes, the team is undoubtedly in the chase for a first-round bye, and their first game out of the bye will be an important one, as they look to take on the presently undefeated San Francisco 49ers.

Let’s take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly from the Packers’ 24-16 victory over the Panthers.

The Good

  • Aaron Jones: There’s not much left to say about Aaron Jones that hasn’t already been said. The leader of the Packers running back room and possibly MVP of the offense once again proved his worth on Sunday, as Jones ran for 93 rushing yards and three touchdowns. He finished the game averaging 7.2 yards per carry and was crucial to the Packers killing some of the clock late in the fourth quarter. As good as Davante Adams is, and with all respect to Aaron Rodgers, there is an argument that Jones has been the best player on the Packers offense in 2019. The Packers will undoubtedly be leaning on him as they continue to play down the stretch.

  • The Smiths: The Packers’ dip into free agency during the offseason continues to pay off. Za’Darius and Preston Smith once again wreaked havoc on the Panthers offensive line and young quarterback Kyle Allen. The pair combined for two sacks and seven quarterback hits, with Za’Darius adding in a bunch of other pressures to boot. Preston Smith has already hit his career-high in sacks, and with Za’Darius not too far behind his own, it’s been clear that these two have completely changed the Packers defense for the better.
  • Red zone defense: For the last six weeks, the Packers defense has been anything but the elite unit that many thought they had become to start the season. However, the Packers “bend but don’t break” mentality on defense has proven to work so far. Although Green Bay gave up 401 yards to the Panthers, they were able to shut them down when Carolina got into the red zone, forcing a turnover and a late goal-line stand that won them the game. The Packers’ defense continues to be extremely opportunistic and live off of turnovers, and while that might be troublesome when it’s not working, the Packers have proven that when they need to, they’re able to tighten things up.

  • Kenny Clark: The Packers’ best defensive lineman had a quiet October, but he produced one of his best games of the 2019 season. He played a big part in limiting Christian McCaffrey to 108 rushing yards and was consistently disruptive as a pass rusher.

The Bad

  • J.K. Scott: To Scott’s credit, he did finish the game with a couple of nice punts, but it was a rocky game for the young kicker. After starting off the season on fire, Scott has once again cooled along with the weather. In a wet, snowy game at Lambeau Field on Sunday, Scott’s first couple of kicks were flat out awful, and as a whole, his punts averaged just 35.3 yards, with his first two kicks giving the Panthers great field position. Scott has been extremely streaky this year, and it’ll be interesting to see how he bounces back following the bye.
  • Penalties: The Packers played a much more disciplined game this week then they did against the Chargers last week, but an alarming trend of penalties killing the team is starting to pop up. Green Bay finished the game with 10 penalties totaling just 64 yards, but the manner in which they came was rough. On offense, false starts and delay of games doomed some of the Packers drives, and late in the game with the Panthers on a potential game-tying drive, both Za’Darius and Preston Smith were caught offsides in crucial moments. It didn’t come back to bite them on Sunday, but giving teams extra chances to beat you is never good, and something the team will have to work on.
  • David Bakhtiari: A surprising entrant on this part of the list, Bakhtiari has struggled during the last couple of weeks. Coming into the season as an All-Pro candidate and one of the best left tackles in the league, Bakhtiari has looked like anything but recently. Not only was he beat a handful of times on Sunday, but he’s been whistled for a ton of penalties that have severely hurt some Packers drives in recent games. The bright side of things is that whether it’s a minor injury or just a stretch of poor play, it’s a safe bet that Bakhtiari will turn things around at some point.

The Ugly

  • Pre-halftime play: It’s important to note that as far as this play is concerned, I believe the decision to go for it was the absolute correct one, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Just prior to the end of the first half, the Packers had the ball on the Panthers 1-yard line with two seconds remaining. Instead of kicking a field goal, the Packers opted to go for it and were stuffed for a 3-yard loss. Not only was Aaron Jones not on the field, but the Packers lined up in a heavy formation, essentially letting the Panthers know they’d be trying to run straight up the middle. Not only did Panthers defensive end Gerald McCoy, who blew up the play, say he knew what was coming prior to the snap, but David Bakhtiari also whiffed on a blocking attempt, which ended any chance of the play succeeding. Going for it was the right decision, but they’ll need better plays for those moments in the future.

Jimmy Garoppolo busts out his own hip-thrusting warmup before MNF and fans had jokes

NFL QB hip warmup videos are now a thing.

So it looks like we have a new thing on our hands, and that thing is videos of NFL quarterbacks working on getting their hips warmed up before games.

This started Sunday night when the NBC SNF broadcast gave the world a great video of Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott doing an explosive hip-thrusting move before the game. Fans quickly had fun putting that to music and the hashtag #DakDancesToAnything was born.

Now we have another QB showing off his hips as 49ers QB Jimmy Garoppolo was seen doing something that looked like a Hula Hoop motion with the Hula Hoop before Monday night’s game against the Seattle Seahawks:

Warming up hips is nothing new, as this video of Jimmy G from a game against the Rams picked up steam on Twitter on Monday afternoon:

49ers rookie defensive end Nick Bosa even gave it a shot, too:

Donovan McNabb, meanwhile, isn’t happy with jokes about this stuff.

But fans had jokes about Jimmy G’s moves:

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Jon Gruden lays out Raiders top nickel option(s) should Lamarcus Joyner be unable to go

Jon Gruden lays out Raiders top nickel option(s) should Lamarcus Joyner be unable to go

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Following the Raiders’ Thursday night win over the Chargers, Jon Gruden was initially most concerned about the apparent hamstring injury suffered by nickel cornerback Lamarcus Joyner. He pulled up without contact on the Chargers’ final possession. Those non-contact injuries are often the worst ones.

As it turned out, it was fellow defensive back Karl Joseph who had the more severe injury, and he was placed on the injured reserve list two days later.

While Joyner’s hamstring injury is not season-ending, he may still miss some time. The Raiders signed free agent DJ Swearinger to try and fill the void left by the loss of Joseph, but at cornerback, they recently traded away one of their starters, leaving them with some serious depth issues now that Joyner is a question mark.

So, who replaces Joyner at the nickel cornerback spot? Well, that depends…

“Nevin Lawson is a guy that can play inside,” said Gruden. “Worley can play inside. Isaiah Johnson can play outside, so we have some options. But we’ll see where Lamarcus is here in the next couple days.”

Lawson is the first option. Worley had been tried out at safety and nickel earlier in the season as the Raiders explored their best five options for the secondary. Moving to safety may have been an option had Joyner not been injured, but now Worley is desperately needed at the cornerback spot.

Whether Worley could be tried at the nickel spot is dependent upon where rookie Isaiah Johnson is in his development. Johnson was activated from the injured reserve list just last week and plays exclusively outside.

“We’ll see where Isaiah is with a full week of practice. Remember last week was his first full week active, and we didn’t even have a full-speed practice before the Charger game. So this will be really the first time we get a chance to see him on the practice field for a full week.”

Experience is undoubtedly a concern with Johnson, while Lawson is a veteran cornerback with 54 NFL starts in 66 appearances under his belt. So, it would seem there is a very good chance the cornerback trio will be Worley and Trayvon Mullen on the outside, Lawson in the slot, and Johnson and Keisean Nixon off the bench.

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Falcons OC credits Matt Ryan’s toughness, no-huddle ability

The Falcons offense played well in Sunday’s win, even if the team’s breakout defensive performance stole the show.

The Falcons offense played well in Sunday’s win, even if the team’s breakout defensive performance stole the show.

Quarterback Matt Ryan, who still isn’t 100 percent due to an ankle injury he suffered against the Rams, helped keep the Saints offense off the field. He executed well in no-huddle situations, and made a couple of uncharacteristic scrambles when the team needed it.

Ryan may have been fighting through injury for a 1-7 football team, but he put it all on the line in New Orleans on Sunday.

Offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter praised Ryan and said the former MVP QB doesn’t get enough credit for his toughness.

Atlanta came out with more aggression on offense, mixing things up and keeping a really talented New Orleans defense on its heels for most of the game.

As for his quarterback’s scrambling ability, Koetter thought the reported 17 MPH which Ryan was clocked at during one of his runs was a typo:

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Raiders tried to claim DJ Swearinger last year, now need him to ‘put it all together’ quickly

Raiders tried to claim DJ Swearinger last year, now need him to ‘put it all together’ quickly

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Safety was a bit of a question mark for the Raiders late last season. So, when Washington waived DJ Swearinger on Christmas Eve, Jon Gruden hopes his brother had sent him a Christmas gift. Jon put in a claim for the former second-round pick. But it was the Arizona Cardinals who swooped in like a game of White Elephant and claimed Swearinger instead.

Swearinger started at safety for the first four games for the Cardinals. That’s when the Cardinals thought 5th round supplemental draft pick Jalen Thompson was ready to take over, so they cut Swearinger loose.

For five weeks, Swearinger was unemployed, waiting for an NFL team in need of his services. Last Thursday, his opportunity knocked when, on the last play of the game, Karl Joseph suffered an ankle injury and was lost for the season.

The former top pick safety is the second starting safety the Raiders have lost this season after first-round rookie Johnathan Abram was lost in the opener.

Joseph had played nearly every single snap at safety and made the game-sealing play of the game the past two weeks. So, losing him is significant. After him and fellow starter Erik Harris, there’s just Curtis Riley and Dallin Leavitt, who play almost exclusively on special teams.

Swearinger has started 70 games in 90 appearances in seven NFL seasons, but he has switched teams six times in that span. There’s a reason why a safety as once highly touted as Swearinger has been unable to stick with a team for long. Some have suggested it is his character that is most concerning. The Raiders don’t have the luxury of worrying about personality issues. They need what he can bring on the field. And they need it now.

“He’s got to put it all together,” said Gruden. “That’s what he needs to do. He’s got to start that process today. We need the very best of Swearinger.”

Despite some solid stints over 31 starts in Washington, Swearinger was waived just before the season finale. In his four starts in Arizona this season, the Cardinals weren’t getting the “very best” of Swearinger, and that was ultimately why he was let go this time.

Last season, Swearinger would have been a claim for the future. Now, in the thick of the playoff chase, he will be looked to bolster their lineup for the stretch run.

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Rams Week 10 snap counts: O-line depth tested, Matthews outsnaps Fowler

The Rams’ depth up front was tested against the Steelers on Sunday.

In the last two years, the Los Angeles Rams started essentially the same offensive linemen for all 32 games. The only major change was with Austin Blythe replacing Jamon Brown at right guard last season.

This year has not been as kind to the Rams in terms of health and continuity. Joseph Noteboom is out for the year with a torn ACL, while both Brian Allen and Rob Havenstein suffered knee injuries on Sunday.

Those injuries have really tested the Rams’ depth up front this season, especially against the Steelers in Week 10. Looking at the snap counts, Los Angeles had to do a lot of shuffling on the offensive line.

Offense

Allen only played 13 snaps before injuring his knee. He was replaced by Blythe at center, which caused Austin Corbett to step in at left guard. No one on the offensive line played well Sunday, and the injuries only made things worse.

When Havenstein went down late in the game, David Edwards moved to right tackle after already making the switch to right guard to start the game. Coleman Shelton came in and played guard to complete the unit.

Josh Reynolds played more than Cooper Kupp, which is surprising. Kupp was blanked on the stat sheet, failing to catch any of the four targets that came his way. Robert Woods played every offensive snap, while Mike Thomas chipped in three plays.

Todd Gurley played 74 percent of the snaps, which is his third-highest snap share of the season. He only carried the ball 12 times, though, and gained 73 yards. Malcolm Brown and Darell Henderson split the other 20 snaps Gurley didn’t play.

Gerald Everett played more than double the snaps Tyler Higbee did and caught eight passes for 68 yards. Higbee caught three of his four targets for 22 yards. Everett remains the Rams’ best option at tight end.

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Marquel Lee returns to practice for Raiders, starting clock on return from injured reserve

Marquel Lee returns to practice for Raiders, starting clock on return from injured reserve

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Each team is allowed to have two players placed on injured reserve during the season to return. Last week the Raiders got rookie cornerback Isaiah Johnson back on schedule. And as of Monday, it was linebacker Marquel Lee whose return clock started as well.

That clock starts a three-week window of when the team must decide either to activate him or end his season entirely.

“NFL rules don’t allow him to play until the Kansas City game, so he’ll get a chance to be on the practice field and get re-acclimated to what he needs to do to get right,” Jon Gruden said of Lee Monday.

Lee had suffered an ankle injury in week three against the Vikings. They will face the Chiefs week 14 on December 1, which means, if Lee is activated at that time, he could play the final four games as well as any playoff games, should the Raiders reach the playoffs.

With the suspension of Vontaze Burfict in week 4, the Raiders could use Lee’s services. They also recently added free-agent linebacker, Will Compton.

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