| Farsala said: Steelers Defense looking pretty bad without Shazier, giving up so many points. It doesn't look like they can stave off the Patriots, but there is a chance. Being at home will be a good advantage. Steelers and Patriots are 15-15, but Steelers often lost the more important games in the playoffs at 1-4. @home 11-9 (1 OT win) @Patriots 4-6 (2 OT wins) |
Pittsburgh has a long and storied history of playing up or down to their competition. They'll give New England a dogfight. The interesting matchup for me will be how Belichick decides to handle Antonio Brown; in the past, the Patriots have usually matched up against teams with a top tier receiver by putting the #2 corner on them with safety help over the top, but this year they've tended to just stick Stephon Gilmore on #1, Malcolm Butler on #2, and then either play 2 safeties deep or stack the box depending on the situation and how much they fear the opponent's running game.
If Gilmore can handle Brown one on one, that'd be a huge help, because our run defense sucks, and we're probably gonna need to constantly keep eight in the box to deal with Bell.
