The future and the past are at the forefront when the Pittsburgh Steelers (7-2) welcome the Tennessee Titans (6-3) to the opening of Week 11 in Thursday Night Game. On the field, a battle of the quarterback generations is looming, a legend returns to Heinz Field and the spectators are offered revolutionary events. The game will be played live on DAZN during the night from 2.25 a. m. on Friday night!
The duel between the Steelers and Titans appears to be of high quality in paper form. The Steelers have won their last four games in a row. The same applies to the Titans, who in Week 10 did not bring about the decision against Cincinnati Bengals until the final seconds. Marcus Mariota found Running Back DeMarco Murray for a short screen pass, which then provided with a brutal body deception for the little bit of space he needed to reach the end zone.
The Steelers made it unnecessarily exciting in Indianapolis. The day began with a suboptimal pick from Ben Roethlisberger, but the veteran QB caught up quite quickly and was not to be stopped with his offense at the end.
The first meeting of Roethlisberger and Mariota is expected with particular excitement. Both of them are a little bit tired, but they trained well. Mariota, however, currently has the major problems with his injuries to the shoulder and ankle. This is already running through the whole season and hinders the QB in its mobility.
Mariota has not really found her way into the season yet, at least as far as countable production is concerned. In eight games, he only threw seven touchdown passes (1183 YDS) and six interceptions. Roethlisberger didn’t look much better in these disciplines either: twelve touchdowns face ten picks (2298 YDS).
The latter is particularly noteworthy because “Big Ben” has a wide range of passport options available. In addition to the superstars Le’ Veon Bell and Antonio Brown, JuJu Smith-Schuster is currently playing in the foreground. He has already caught five touchdowns and at least one in the last three games.
It is remarkable for Pittsburgh that their own defense makes the difference at the moment, not the theoretically explosive offense: on average, the Steelers only allow 16.4 points, second place in the league. The same applies to Total Defense with an average of 284.4 yards.
The Titans are likely to have their hands full with it, as their 328.7 yards per game will only be enough for place 19 in the league.
“Her pass-defense is her pass rush,”Titans coach Mike Mularkey analyzed the coming opponent,”You have to block these guys. They have a complicated scheme like us. We’ll have our hands full.”
Cornerback Joe Haden, who broke his leg, will not participate. Coty Senabaugh starts in his place. But this should be the only notable failure, especially since no one appeared on the Injury Report with the Titans.
A key to the Titans, however, could be a man who will celebrate his return to Heinz Field. The longstanding defensive coordinator of the Steelers now holds the post for the Titans.
With the Steelers, the now 80-year-old won two Super Bowls in ten years in office, and since Tennessee is not expected to be in Pittsburgh until 2019, this could be his last appearance in Heinz Field,”I didn’t think about it at all,”LeBeau told ESPN.
But the defensive guru doesn’t seem to think about stopping. NFL-expert and ex-Steelers-Cornerback Ike Taylor said about his former coach:”He told me years ago:’ What could I do in an old people’s home? What could I do if I resigned?'”
LeBeau has been in Pittsburgh for so long that they will continue to adhere to his system there. A system that he has been playing in Tennessee since 2015 “I saw a high school game a few years ago. I saw them playing Zone Blitzes and thought to myself,’ Well, I know where that came from, it was pretty cool,’ remembers LeBeau,’ different people add their nuances. But the system is still holding up pretty well. I still see it in the NFL. Probably nothing lasts forever, but it’s had a pretty good time.”
The Steelers-Offense will therefore encounter a defense that looks very similar to their own. In terms of effectiveness, however, the Titans’ defenses are still far from those of the Steelers. On average, it allows 328.3 yards (16th place in the league), plus 23.7 points. Pittsburgh’s 20.8 points (19th place) is not particularly effective, however, so that there could be an open exchange of blows.
An open exchange of blows that TV viewers will see from a special perspective. The broadcasting broadcaster, NBC, felt inspired by his Sunday night broadcast of the Patriots versus the Falcons from Week 7. At that time there was such a thick fog that the normal main camera became unusable and almost exclusively the SkyCam – known in Germany as Spider Cam – had to be used.
NBC will now intentionally show this Thursday Night Game mainly from the SkyCam perspective. The camera is attached to steel ropes and flies over the playing field. Connoisseurs will be reminded of the video game “Madden”, where they have been playing from this perspective for years.
The advantage is obvious: The action is seen in the back of the offense, so you basically see what the quarterback sees. The conventional lateral perspective, on the other hand, only provides a limited view of that aspect of the game.
“I think it’s a worthy attempt,”said Fred Gaudelli, Executive Producer of Sunday Night Football and Thursday Night Football on NBC,”You see, football has been shown in the same way since day one. Yeah, we added cameras. We introduced additional technology. We added all these things. But the game itself has been transferred in a certain way, and I think this is now an opportunity to solve some of it and present people with a different kind of production to evaluate it and see if they like it or not.”
In times of falling quotas, which are not limited to football, but are generally found on the American TV market, this is certainly an interesting attempt to break new ground and perhaps arouse new interest. It’s worth a try.
Pittsburgh Steelers (7-2) – Tennessee Titans (6-3) (Fri 2:25 a. m. live on DAZN)
The SPOX NFL Predictor, Week 11:
Pascal
De Marco
90-56