Steelers vs. Browns Preview

There's a Cleveland in Australia.

That's pretty much the most interesting thing I can bring to the table when discussing this game with the Browns on Sunday.

I can think of three reasons why the Steelers will win and they're all pretty compelling:

1. They suck balls and we're way more talented across the roster.
2. We've won 13 of the last 14 games against them and the last 7 in a row.
3. There is absolutely, positively NO WAY Tomlin allows this team to lose this game. It's his first game as a coach, it's a division game, it's Cleveland, and he's been waiting for this game since the Steelers hired him. He's going to have every last detail prepared and accounted for, including four different options of what he will say when the sideline reporter interviews him before halftime.

This to say nothing of the fact that the Browns are still quarterbacked by Charlie Frye and they've got Hank Fraley as their starting center. Frye got abused by the outside linebackers last season (and the season before that) and Fraley was probably afraid to look anyone in the eye after what Casey Hampton did to him last season.

Those two details mean that the Browns won't be able to throw the ball (because Frye sucks and he'll hear footsteps coming out of the tunnel - that's funny because he'll be walking through the tunnel there's an echo) and that they won't be able to run up the middle, which is really the only place Jamal Lewis is effective.

On defense, they've got a few guys that are in their late eighties and a few guys that were born in the late eighties. It's always good to have youth on defense, it's always good to have veteran leadership on defense. But you also need to have mostly guys that are in that 26-29 sweet spot where they're in the prime of their careers. The Browns don't have any of those guys.

I picked the Steelers to win in my Survivor Pool. And so did just about everyone else, including the girl that thinks the I-Formation is a self-empowering religious cult.

Everyone on ESPN.com (and pretty much every other Web site I've checked) has the Steelers.

Most importantly: I understand that this blog entry is one, gigantic jinx and I'm still going to post it. That's how confident I that they're going to win.