NFL Picks Week 8: Steelers Will Stifle Patriots Just Enough to Win Shootout

Sunday's marquee matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots will serve as an unofficial announcement that the NFL is now an offense-first league.

These two titans of the 2000s have long prided themselves on playing great defense above all else, yet they've both morphed into point-scoring juggernauts in 2011.

Not that the Steelers and the Pats weren't capable of piling up yardage and sailing to the end zone in years past. Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady have long been capable of leading their respective offenses down the field time and again, whether by foot-and-scramble, like Big Ben, or by pinpoint precision, like Brady.

However, never before have these two playoff adversaries been quite so heavily tilted toward scoreboard explosion over point prevention, at least in New England's case. Even the 2007 Pats, who broke seemingly every record in the book on the way to a perfect regular season, still have one of the stingiest defenses in the NFL.

Nowadays, Brady finds himself surrounded by small, speedy wideouts in Wes Welker and Deion Branch, uber-athletic tight ends in Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski, a steady ground game behind BenJarvus Green-Ellis and Stevan Ridley, and one of the league's softest defenses.

The Steelers, on the other hand, have finally given Big Ben enough talent to work with to compare favorably with what Troy Polamalu has to work with as the "quarterback" of Pittsburgh's D.

Rashard Mendenhall has had an uneven season out of the backfield, though that's hardly mattered—especially not with arguably the deepest receiving corps in the NFL on hand, with Hines Ward and Mike Wallace backed up by Antonio Brown, Emmanuel Sanders and Jerricho Cotchery, along with long-time tight end Heath Miller.

Meanwhile, the defense, third in total yards allowed and third in scoring, still butters the team's bread, even with All-Pro linebacker James Harrison done for the season with a broken orbital bone.

With the way these two teams can and do score, this game could very well come down to which team has the ball last. The onus will be on the Pats' suspect defense to step up against a Steelers attack that's partial to making big plays down the field with its blinding speed at wide receiver.

A little bit of pressure on Brady from Polamalu and LaMarr Woodley is all Pittsburgh will need to hold off the Pats at home and lay claim once again to the title of best team in the AFC.

Prediction: Steelers 27, Patriots 24