The Steelers are only about one-point favorites against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday. That's a unique position for the Steelers, who customarily are a much better team than the Browns, but the Browns have home-field advantage, and more importantly, the Steelers are down two quarterbacks. After the injuries of Ben Roethlisberger and Byron Leftwich, the Steelers will send out 37-year-old Charlie Batch. (The newly-acquired Brian Hoyer will back him up.)
Still, the line might be a bit ungenerous to the Steelers -- even giving them a bit of credit for a couple close losses this year, the Browns are a 2-8 team, and much of the Steelers' strong defense is intact. We'll see how Batch performs -- the fact that the Steelers kept turning last week to Leftwich, who appeared to be injured while under-throwing his targets, may say something about what the Steelers think of Batch. But Batch was reasonably effective when pressed into duty last season.