{"id":20068,"date":"2011-12-07T00:56:54","date_gmt":"2011-12-07T05:56:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20068"},"modified":"2011-12-07T00:56:54","modified_gmt":"2011-12-07T05:56:54","slug":"thursday-night-nfl-football-picks-steelers-host-browns-in-afc-north-matchup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/thursday-night-nfl-football-picks-steelers-host-browns-in-afc-north-matchup-20068\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday Night NFL Football Picks: Steelers host Browns in AFC North matchup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cleveland Browns at Pittsburgh Steelers
\nThursday, 12\/8\/11, 8:20 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 NFL
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Pittsburgh -11
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Pittsburgh -14
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 39.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 38.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Browns
Cleveland QB Colt McCoy has never beaten an AFC North opponent and will be a double-digit underdog on Thursday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Second-year quarterback Colt McCoy is 0-7 against AFC North opponents during his young career with the Cleveland Browns.\u00a0 The odds are stacked against him getting his first career victory within the division when the Browns (4-8) visit the Pittsburgh Steelers (9-3) on Thursday Night Football.<\/p>\n

Making matters worse for Cleveland and McCoy is that he is dealing with a sprained right knee, which will limit him even though he is still expected to start.\u00a0 Pittsburgh (-14, O\/U 38.5) beat the Browns twice last year by an average of 25 points with McCoy under center, covering the spread both times.<\/p>\n

Cleveland is coming off a 24-10 home loss to Baltimore last week and will end up playing the Ravens and Steelers twice each in the last five weeks of the regular season.\u00a0 McCoy injured his knee on a hit by Baltimore defensive end Arthur Rhodes but missed only one play.\u00a0 He could use some more help from running back Peyton Hillis, who rushed for just 45 yards on 12 carries against the Ravens.<\/p>\n

Hillis is dealing with a left hip strain himself and missed five games earlier this season due to a hamstring injury.\u00a0 He too is expected to play but has not fared well against Pittsburgh in two games, totaling 54 yards on 18 carries.<\/p>\n

The Steelers have won seven of their last eight games, with the lone loss during that stretch coming against Baltimore.\u00a0 They lost both meetings with the Ravens earlier this year and need to finish a game ahead of them to win the AFC North because they would lose the tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh routed Cincinnati 35-7 last week behind two touchdowns from RB Rashard Mendenhall and two by wide receiver Mike Wallace on passes from QB Ben Roethlisberger.\u00a0 The team was able to rest some key players after taking a 28-7 halftime lead, including linebacker LaMarr Woodley, who sat out the last three quarters to rest his sore hamstring.\u00a0 Woodley has sat out the previous three games and had not played in more than a month with the bye week.<\/p>\n

The Browns have lost 14 of the last 15 meetings with the Steelers and seven straight at Heinz Field.\u00a0 The one win came at home in 2009 with Brady Quinn calling the signals in a 13-6 victory.\u00a0 Cleveland has failed to cover seven of eight overall while Pittsburgh is 7-2 against the spread in its last nine at home and 8-2 ATS in the team\u2019s previous 10 against divisional opponents.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NFL handicappers<\/a> at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cleveland Browns at Pittsburgh Steelers Thursday, 12\/8\/11, 8:20 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 NFL Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Pittsburgh -11 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Pittsburgh -14 Opening Total:\u00a0 39.5 Current Total:\u00a0 38.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Second-year quarterback Colt McCoy is 0-7 against AFC North opponents during his young career with the Cleveland Browns.\u00a0 The odds are stacked against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":17253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[2583,360,1772,1930,1922,346,2757,3779,4018],"class_list":["post-20068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-afc-north","tag-cleveland-browns","tag-nfl-betting","tag-nfl-odds","tag-nfl-picks","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pro-football","tag-thursday-night-football","tag-week-14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20068"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20070,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20068\/revisions\/20070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}