Steelers vs. Browns Best Bets for Thursday Night Football in Week 12 (Target Jameis Winston, Fade Nick Chubb)
The Cleveland Browns are in primetime Thursday as they host the scorching-hot Pittsburgh Steelers in an AFC North clash.
At 2-8, Cleveland is focusing on the future but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to play spoiler against the first-place Steelers. Cleveland already has a home upset of another division rival, Baltimore, this year. Can they get another Thursday?
The Steelers, winners of five straight, are currently 3.5-point favorites in the matchup and the point total is sitting at 36.5. Here are three best bets to consider for Thursday.
Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook.
Steelers vs. Browns Best Bets for Thursday Night Football in Week 12
- Steelers-Browns OVER 36.5 Points
- Jameis Winston OVER 33.5 Pass Attempts
- Nick Chubb UNDER 51.5 Rushing Yards
Steelers-Browns OVER 36.5 Points (-110)
Recency bias might have you leaning toward another AFC North defensive battle after the Ravens and Steelers combined for just 34 points on Sunday. However, Baltimore did miss a pair of field goals and the Steelers had a costly redzone turnover, on top of settling for Chris Boswell field goals on all six of their scoring drives.
Pittsburgh won’t face as much resistance this week as this Cleveland defense has been deflated and just allowed the shorthanded New Orleans Saints to rack up 8.2 yards per play and score 35 points. We’ve seen Russell Wilson play much better than he did against Baltimore. The average point total in Wilson’s first three starts was 50.3.
Cleveland should be able to get its points, too. The Browns were a victim of poor special teams on Sunday with Zane Gonzalez missing a pair of field goals, including a 27-yarder before the half. Lost in a 21-point defeat was that Jameis Winston threw for 395 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
There were a plethora of points left on the board from both of these teams last week and that fixes itself by going over this low total, which lends itself to our next pick.
Jameis Winston OVER 33.5 Pass Attempts (-125)
Because the Browns’ defense has been so bad, we’ll go ahead and tag Winston for a busy day through the air. Cleveland has been dreadful at running the ball (more on that later) and Pittsburgh stuffs the run well.
The Browns have no choice but to be confident in Winston slinging it in a one-dimensional offense, which is why the veteran signal-caller has thrown the ball 40-plus times in three consecutive games. He’ll air it out plenty Thursday against a Pittsburgh defense that is No. 18 against the pass this season.
Nick Chubb UNDER 51.5 Rushing Yards (-115)
We’ve already touched on it briefly, but Pittsburgh is superb against the run. The Steelers are allowing just 90.8 yards per game on the ground, which ranks fourth in the NFL. They’ve been a nightmare for opposing running backs and just held Derrick Henry to just 65 yards on 13 attempts.
That’s why we’ll fade Nick Chubb, who has not looked like the same explosive, elite running back since returning from last year’s gruesome injury suffered against Pittsburgh.
Chubb is averaging just 3.1 yards per carry this season and has been held under this rushing yardage prop in three of four games. On top of his struggles, Cleveland is abandoning the run at times and when they do turn to the ground, second-year back Jerome Ford is cutting into Chubb’s workload. Ford got five rushing attempts in Sunday’s loss to New Orleans and even Pierre Strong Jr. received two. Both of those backs have more receiving upside than Chubb, as well, so a Cleveland offense looking for a spark is more inclined to fade away from Chubb, who has yet to get going since coming back in October.
Game odds update periodically and are subject to change.