Hello, you and everybody. Welcome to the Mike Francesa podcast and Francesa Five time for week number 17.

I want to wish everybody a very, very Merry Christmas. And if you're not around, if you're on vacation or something, a very happy and healthy new year.

Francesa Five for Week 17, it's very hard in this week to land on because you got to do live teams

otherwise you just you know playing hunches because it's hard to know who's going to play

on some of these in teams when the game teams are out of it uh so it's hard to wind up anywhere except

on the favorites uh i wound up on all favorites. Unfortunately, I did dig for a dog that I

liked, but I couldn't find any. So here we go for week number 17. Game number one, I'm on the Steelers

minus three in Cleveland. Normally, I would be leery of the Steelers in Cleveland. I embrace the rivalry. I understand

what it means for Pittsburgh when they enter Cleveland and how much Cleveland fans would love to

beat the Steelers. But right now, the way the two teams are coming up to the game, I can't expect

anything except to steal a victory. You have to be ultra impressed in that crazy game against

the Lions. I tell you, I did not think, I did not pick the Lions last week because I knew they

were banged up in the secondary, but I did not

think Pittsburgh would go in there and win that game the way they did. Rogers has actually

gotten sharper and sharper. Bringing in Thielen has given him another weapon as far as someone

who can run routes and he can trust and he knows where he's

going to be. You can see him getting better and better with his backs. You can see him

getting better with the tight ends, especially Fryhoff, or I think it's going to be a,

Frymuth is going to be a bigger target in the weeks to come and in the big games

because I think there's a connection there that's developing.

The way they ran the ball.

I know that said something about the banged up line defense,

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