Thursday Night Observations

Good game

Sometimes when you have too much invested in the games, not so much financially, but emotionally, you forget to enjoy them. But with my one share of Jaylen Warren and Elijah Moore and having sat Cedric Tillman for Jonnu Smith contra the FantasyPros rankings, this wasn’t a huge one for me, so once the snow kicked in, I just allowed myself to watch as a fan. NFL snow games take you back to somewhere, whether it was Thanksgiving Day at your Uncle’s house in Michigan or Christmas break in New York when you were home from college. Everything is okay because there’s a game on, and in that game it is snowing

I also had the Browns +3.5 in my picking pool — such an obvious spot to fade the Steelers off their huge win against the Ravens before traveling on a short week.

• The Browns offensive line really protected Jameis Winston well. He looked sharp enough in tough conditions against a good defense, the pick notwithstanding. In fact, the pick was on 3rd-and-10 and wasn’t even that bad. He also fumbled, again in tough conditions, but led them on the game-winning drive in the final minute.

• Jerry Jeudy is emerging as Winston’s top target, though Tillman left early with a concussion. The Browns have good receivers including David Njoku.

• It was a slog for Nick Chubb, but he scored twice and is looking more like himself.

• Jaylen Warren looked much shiftier than Najee Harris and also caught three passes and ran for the TD. It was a throwback to last year where sometimes Harris got the work, but Warren scored the points.

• The Steelers have George Pickens, speed merchant Calvin Austin and not much else. Pat Freiermuth is decent, but Van Jefferson is maybe the worst No. 2 in the league. No idea why Mike Williams hasn’t been involved for two games.

• Russell Wilson was okay, but he’s yielding short yardage to Justin Fields now, and it’s not like Wilson had much value anyway. The Browns got a lot more heat than the Steelers did.