The Steelers Draft Selections, 2026

Before weighing in on the matter of the Steelers Draft, let me begin with a story that I tell every year at this time.

Sometime back in the pre-Chuck Noll era of Steelers Football, and shortly after the NFL Draft of that given year, back when the draft was not a three day nationally televised extravaganza, my dad runs into Steelers DT Ben Magee (ask your parents or grandparents, kids) at some downtown Pittsburgh lunch counter.  "Hey, Ben," Frank asks "what do you think of those guys the Steelers drafted?"

Ben replies "You don't know nothin' about any them until they get into camp."  

True then, true today,  but with that in mind, here are your newest Pittsburgh Steelers. 

Round
1	Max Iheanachor	OL	Arizona St
2	Germie Bernard	WR	Alabama
3a	Drew Allar	QB	Penn State
3b	Daylen Everette	CB	Georgia
3c	Gennings Dunker	OL	Iowa
4	Kaden Wetgen	WR	Iowa
5	Riley Nowakowski	TE/FB	Indiana
6	Gabriel Rubio	DL	Notre Dame
7a	Robert Spears-Jennings	DB	Oklahoma
7b	Eli Heidenreich	RB	Navy

For the third time in four years, the Steelers selected an offensive lineman with their first round pick.  Now we all know that O-linemen are important building blocks of any great team, but let's be honest, selecting an offensive lineman with your first pick is about as un-sexy as it gets.  As one local scribe put it:  It's like getting a US Savings Bond for Christmas.  It's solid gift, one that could achieve long term value for you, but it sure isn't any fun.  As history goes, Alan Faneca and David DeCastro turned out to be terrific first round selections for the Steelers.  Tom Ricketts, not so much, and the jury is still out on Broderick Jones and Troy Fautanu.  Let us all hope that Iheanachor (pronounced "I-hawn-a-chore") turns out to be the next Alan Faneca.  We'll know by the start the 2028 season how this pick turns out.

It's always fun when your team drafts a quarterback, and the selection of Penn State's Drew Allar should prove to be no exception.  It puts him in direct competition with last year's sixth round pick Will Howard, whom many were expecting to be QB#2 this season.  This, of course, assumes that Aaron Rodgers will be back as QB#1.  It also means that Mason Rudolph may be looking for employment come the end of training camp in September.  Who knows, but like I said, it sure is going to provide endless fodder among the gas bag talk show crowd.  The dreaded "Quarterback Controversy" will be sure to rear its ugly head in Steeler Nation in the months ahead.  It will be great fun.

The other pick that packs a lot of emotion with it came with the team's final selection, RB Eli Heidenreich of the Naval Academy.  First off, some Steelers "sources" are saying that he is a Christian McCaffrey-like talent.  That's quite a statement, but if he's half the player that McCaffrey is, the Steelers have struck gold in the seventh round. Secondly, how great was it to see him come on stage waving that Terrible Towel while wearing his Navy uniform, and thirdly, HE'S A LOCAL KID!!!!  A Yinzer!!! A graduate of Mt. Lebanon High School, just like Buccos skipper Don "Donnie" Kelly and Chicago Cubs outfielder Ian Happ!  Who isn't going to be rooting for this kid to make the team? Realistically, he's going to be at the bottom of the depth chart at his position, and special teams may offer him his best chance of making an impact with the Steelers in 2026.  Also, what happens in regard to Heidenreich's commitment to serve in the US Navy?  How does that work around a job in professional football?  Just curious.

Speaking of special teams, the pick of Iowa WR Kaden Wetjen is an intriguing one. Along with second round pick Germi Bernard, Wetjen fills a definite need at the WR position, but I've heard it said that his best contribution could come as kickoff and punt returner, and that REALLY fills a need for the team.  Despite how special teams coach Danny Smith was lauded by the media in recent years, when was the last time you saw a Steeler return a punt for twenty of more yards or advance a kickoff beyond the Steelers forty yard line?  If that happened at all in 2025, I sure don't remember it.  Maybe Wetjen is the guy to do so this coming season.

The other draft pick that is garnering a lot of the attention is this guy, third round selection Gennings Dunker:

That flame red Jaromir Jagr-like mullet has already made him a popular choice among fans.  I can see him letting it grow to Troy Polomalu length that should be seen on ads for some Western PA automobile dealership by October.  He might even get the same Levin Furniture deal that Kenny Pickett got.

Of course, none of these guys has played a single down in pro football, so we should all hold off with grading "how the Steelers (or any team for that matter) did in the draft" at least, as Ben Magee so wisely put it, "until they get into camp" and probably not until the end of the 2026 season.

And I cannot leave the subject of the 2026 without addressing the fact that is was a local event, held right here in Pittsburgh.  The preparation for this event took years, and it did cause some inconveniences as the draft approached in regard to traffic restrictions, but by all accounts, it was smashing success, and a major economic boon for the region, although reports are coming in that some smaller businesses didn't do quite as well as hoped.  It will probably be years before the long range economic impact on the City and region can be accurately measured.  In any event, we are told that 325,000 people jammed the "draft theater" area between Acrisure Stadium and PNC Park on Thursday....

...and that 805,000 people "attended" the Draft and Draft related events over the three day period, although how they measured those figures is a mystery to me.  The whole thing came off without incident.  It was quite the event, and even though Linda and I didn't attend any of it, it sure was fun to experience it.  One special highlight for me was at the opening when all of these guys appeared on stage with Roger Goodell.

Ben Roethlisberger, Mel Blount, TJ Watt, Cam Heyward,

Lynn Swann, Hines Ward, Terry Bradshaw

Lots of Gold Jackets and future Gold Jackets on stage

Good luck to Washington DC in hosting this event in 2027.  As if that city doesn't have enough security issues with which to deal.

 

Mike Tomlin Steps Down

 

Do not count The Grandstander as being among the hordes of football fans who all think that they are as smart as, if not smarter than, Vince Lombardi, gasbag sports radio talk show hosts, and sportswriters who love to fire coaches.  I have always been and will always remain a big fan of Mike Tomlin who yesterday stepped down as the Steelers head coach after 19 seasons at the helm.   This was not a firing (the Steelers have not fired a head coach since 1968).   This was Mike Tomlin's decision, and I am glad of that.  No man who has served an organization so well for so long should be fired.  This editorial in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says it far better than I.

Having said that, I can't say that this isn't a good thing to be happening at this point in Steelers history.  After nineteen years, the message may get old and the ears in the room just might stop listening.   

Tomlin took the Steelers to the Super Bowl twice in his first four years with the team, winning it once, but simple arithmetic then tells you that the team hasn't been to the Super Bowl for the last fifteen seasons.  That is not "the Standard" that Tomlin himself had always set for his teams.  As we all know, Tomlin had never had a losing season in his 19 years at the helm.  As Art Rooney II said in his statement yesterday, that is an accomplishment that may never be duplicated.  However, nine seasons that have featured an 0-7 record in the playoffs, with none of the losses being close ones, is not a small sample size, so perhaps it is time for new look for the Black and Gold.  

On the topic of that non-losing seasons streak, let me point out that since Ben Roethlisberger retired, the Steelers have competed with these guys at quarterback, the most important position in the game: Mitch Trubisky, Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, Russell Wilson, Justin Fields, and Aaron Rodgers.  Trubisky and Rudolph are capable back-ups, Pickett was a terrific college QB at Pitt, but a busted first round draft pick who is now playing on his fourth team in four years, the jury may still be out on Fields, and while both Wilson and Rodgers are future Hall of Famers, they were pretty much washed up when they got to Pittsburgh.  If the Steelers could put up winning records and make the playoffs with those guys at QB, surely Mike Tomlin deserves some of the credit for that.

So now the search begins for a new head coach.   In his press conference today, Rooney made it clear that no one on the current staff is a candidate for the job.  The Post-Gazette floated a number of names this morning of guys who would be interesting candidates.  I am not qualified say who the right guy might be, but I hope that it will be a younger guy with some innovative ideas, much in the vein of what Sean McVey brought to and is still delivering to the Rams here in this decade.  One of the names in the PG this morning that was interesting to me was former Steelers player (and Super Bowl hero) Antwaan Randle El, now the assistant head coach and wide receivers coach for the Bears.  If nothing else, Randle El could teach the knucklehead wide receivers that the Steelers have been attracting how to act. 

As we all know, the Steelers have had only three head coaches in 57 seasons.  All of those hires, Chuck Noll in 1969, Bill Cowher in 1992, and Tomlin in 2007 produced Super Bowl victories, and all of them were made under the supervision of Dan Rooney.  Well, Dan left this world in 2017, and Steelers fans can only hope that Art II will have the same magic touch when it comes to selection the Next Guy.  Oh, and it will really help a whole lot if the team could somehow find that quarterback who will be the "next Terry" or the "next Big Ben".

As for Mike Tomlin, reports are that he has no interest in coaching in 2026, so perhaps he wants to recharge for a year before returning to the sidelines.  Or perhaps he might want to do a television gig,  The networks will fall all over themselves to sign him up to deliver his patented "Tomlinisms" every week.  Whatever he does, I'll be watching and wishing him well, and will always be grateful for what he brought to the Steelers for these past nineteen seasons.

Farewell, Coach.

Super Bowl XLIII 

Victory Parade

2009

He's Here!

 

To paraphrase our 38th President  and Michigan Wolverine standout O-lineman, Jerry Ford, Pittsburgh's long national nightmare came to an end over this last weekend when future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers signed a one year deal to be the QB of the Pittsburgh Steelers.  The media frenzy that this dance  has generated over the last three months will reach its zenith later this afternoon as the Steelers open their mandatory mini-camp and Rodgers puts on a Steelers helmet for the first time.  I heard on the radio at 8:00 this morning that ESPN was already camped outside ot Steelers HQ on the South Side to get a glimpse, and possibly hear from, Rodgers himself sometime aroung 1:00 this afternoon.

Perhaps the best analysis from any local media person was THIS COLUMN by the Post-Gazette's Paul Ziese from June 5.  It says it better than I can.

As I see it, I had little or, at least, very low expectations for the Steelers season in 2025.  Now those expectations have risen a bit.  Rodgers, even  a Rodgers diminished from his four time MVP prime, gives the Steelers a much better chance to compete in the ACC North, make the Playoffs, and possibly win a Playoff game for the first time inine years. (Oh, how our expectations have diminished over the last few years!)

Of course,  it is also not beyond the realm of possibility that Rodgers' 41 years will have caught up with him and he will play football in the NFL in 2025 as a washed up 41 year old man, in which case, the reigns get turned over to Mason Rudolph, the Steelers end up with a mediocre to lousy season, and we then anxiously see what quarterback the Steelers select in the 2026 Draft to become the "Next Terry and/or Big Ben".

If nothing else, the presence of Aaron Rodgers and all the weirdness that surrounds him is gong to make the '25 Steelers season....interesting.

Three Quick Sports Thoughts

Some "Sports Briefs" from this section of The Grandstand this morning.

Behold this item form the sports pages of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette this morning about Auburn University basketball player Chad Baker-Mazara.

By my reckoning, and using all go my fingers and toes to count, Mr. Baker-Mazara, now 25 years of age, has now played five seasons at four different Institutions of Higher Learning (two at Auburn and one each at Northwest Florida State, San Diego State, and Duquesne) and is now looking to play one more season (at least) at yet another Institution of Higher Learning.

How does this happen?

********

As a Steeles fan for over 65 years, nothing has been as off-putting to me as this dance that the Steelers have been doing for over three months now with Aaron Rodgers,  In HIS COLUMN in today's Post-Gazette, Jason Mackey details quite perfectly why this madness has to stop and why the Steelers should tell Rodgers that....

....and that he needs to shit or get off the pot soon, as in, say, yesterday..

My own thought is that if Dan Rooney were still with us and running the team, this circus would not have been tolerated and would never have happened.

*******

I usually wait to give an assessment of any given Pirates season until about thirty games, or 20% of the season, have been played.  The Pirates have played only 20 games, and despite having just won three of four from the equally bad Washington Nationals, the Bucs are 8-12 and are in last place in the NL Central, and they are giving off all indications that they will be posting a season that will be historically bad, with 100 losses being well within their grasp.

I will do a deeper analysis at that thirty game mark, but I will leave you with this photo of the box score from the game of two nights ago against the Nats,

Check out those batting averages, five guys batting below .200 and a sixth guy sitting right on the .200 mark.  Oh, and the guy with the highest BA among them, a robust .250, was batting eighth in the order.  I don't know if I've ever seen anything quite like that.

Yesterday, I attended my first game of this season, and I did enjoy seeing a Pirates victory, a 1-0 win in which the Pirates mustered five hits and went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.  The entire offense came when Oneil Criz hit a monster home run - the outfielders didn't even move when it was hit - on the first pitch of the game.  Glad we weren't late arriving or we'd have missed everything. Andrew Heaney pitched a nice ballgame, going 7.1 innings and lowering his ERA to 2.13, but Pirates pitchers can't be expected to have to pitch shutouts every time out in order to win games.  I mean...

(How's that for resurrectiong an oldie but goodie of a picture?)

Sporting Thoughts

A scattershot look from The Grandstand at recent happenings in the World of Sports.

Steelers 28 - Washington Football Team 27

Najee rumbles

George Pickens does magic

Russ drops one down the 

chimney to Mike Williams

In a week that can be described as "depressing" for some of us sitting in the Grandstand, the Steelers road win on Sunday over the Washington Commanders can be rightly described as "euphoric".  The Steelers were coming off a bye week and were 6-2, and the Commanders with their terrific rookie QB Jaydon Daniels were the surprise of the league at  7-2.  In all honesty, I was expecting a Steelers loss on Sunday.   The nature of the win....a Steelers defense severely limiting Daniels, overcoming a double digit second half deficit, and the dime that Russell Wilson dropped to newly acquired Mike Williams with a little over two minutes to play for the go ahead touchdown....it was, well...euphoric!

I have not written much about the Steelers or the NFL so far this season, so let's reflect a bit.  Sunday's win gives the Steelers a 7-2 record and a half game lead over the 7-3 Ravens, and sets ups a BIG GAME this Sunday when Baltimore comes to Pittsburgh.  It will be the first divisional game that the Steelers will play and the stakes are, well, big.  First place in the division, tie-breaker advantages, and blah blah blah.  At the beginning of the year, I felt that Baltimore would be in the Super Bowl, and Lamar Jackson is playing at a level that will probably bring him a third MVP Award.  However, the Ravens have shown some defensive vulnerability and a strange propensity for blowing leads late in games.  I have often said that there is no better rivalry in the NFL over the last 15 or so years than Steelers-Ravens, and this week should prove to add to the luster of these games.  And expect to hear the TV announcers trot out the Mike Tomlin-John Harbaugh to George Halas-Curly Lambeau comparisons.

After that 6-2 start, the Steelers post-bye schedule appeared, and still does appear, to be a brutal one:  all six divisional games, plus the Commanders, Eagles, and Chiefs.  They already have notched one W from that gauntlet.  The rest of the way won't be any easier, but with how the team looked against the WFT, I am anxiously awaiting the next eight weeks, but, of course, I'll be taking them all one game at a time.

Grandstander Power Rankings

Not sure how regularly I'm going to do this, but here is my first GPR of the season, submitted without comment:

1. Lions 8-1
2. Chiefs 9-0
3. Bills 8-2
4. Ravens 7-3
5. Steelers 7-2
6. Eagles 7-2
7. Commanders 7-2
8. Vikings 7-2
9. Falcons 6-4
10. Cardinals 6-4

Others receiving consideration: Bengals 4-6, Broncos 5-5, Chargers 6-3, Texans 6-4.

Dodgers Win World Series

The Dodgers five game World Series win over the Yankees was just a little over two weeks ago, yet it already feels like so long ago, so I don't want to let it recede into the mists of history without a few comments.

First off, a Dodgers-Yankees face off was an exciting prospect, because it would pit the two greatest offensive players in the game today in a showdown against each other, Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers and Aaron Judge of the Yankees.  That was going to cause fireworks like we hadn't seen since Reggie Jackson turned into Mr. October.  Well, it didn't turn out that way.  Over the 162 game season, Ohtani and Judge combined to hit .315 with 112 home runs and 274 runs batted in.  In the five game series, they combined to hit .162 (6-for-37) with 1 HR and 3 RBI.

And then there was that fifth game.  After four innings the Yanks led 5-0, Gerrit Cole hadn't surrendered a hit through four innings, Judge had hit a home run, and the Yankees appeared to be cruising to a win that would extend the Series to a sixth game.  Then it all fell apart in a way that only baseball can deliver to us.  Aaron Judge, who hadn't committed an error all season (you can look it up), dropped a routine fly ball in center, short stop Anthony Volpe made a throwing error, and then, inexplicably, Cole failed to cover first base on a ground ball to first, and BOOM, the Dodgers had tied it 5-5 and were on their way to a 7-6 win in Game 5 and a World Series Championship.  Overall, perhaps it won't go down as one of the Great World Series of our time, but that fifth game, and especially that fifth inning, will make it a memorable one for sure.

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, playing with an injured ankle that would probably have put him on the injured list in the regular season, was the Most Valuable Player of the Series.  He batted .300, had a Series record tying 12 RBI, and hit 4 home runs.  The first of those was an extra innings walk off grand slam that, in retrospect, may have effectively ended the Series right then and there.   The MVP Award for this Series was never in doubt.

Freeman came to the majors full time with the Braves in 2011.  In those days I was still playing fantasy baseball, and I always coveted him for my team, but he always got drafted by someone else before I had the chance to nab him.  From the start he was, as my Dad would have put it, "a nice looking ball player."  He was a good player from the start, and he seems to be a likable guy as well.  He always seems to chat up and laugh with other players whenever they reach first base, which I think is kind of cool to see.  Through 15 seasons, he has hit .300 with 343 HR and over 1,200 RBI.  Next year will be his age 35 season, and he appears to still have gas in the tank, so an eventual landing spot in Cooperstown is not hard to imagine.  I will look forward to still watching him play.

College Football

What with conference realignments, NIL money, the transfer portal, and a twelve team Playoff, the business model of college football is well on the way to becoming Major League Baseball.  If you follow the sport, you know exactly what I am talking about, so I needn't spell it out for you here.  Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is still TBD, but one thing for sure is that this 2024 season has produced some absolutely terrific match-ups and games, and seems to be doing it on weekly basis.  I cannot recall a season where I have looked forward to at least one game every single weekend as much as I have this season, and it shows no signs of stopping right up on through the conclusion of the CFP Championship game on January 20, so at least there will be one good thing that will happen on that day.

A Bombshell from the Steelers

The Steelers held their formal press conference yesterday to make official the signing of Russell Wilson as a free agent and to make official the Russell Wilson Era, as described in this piece four days ago.  That wasn't the bombshell, however.  That exploded a few hours later with this news:

No one new that the beginning of the Wilson Era would mean the end of the Kenny Pickett Era.  It has been hinted in the media that Pickett's reaction to the Wilson signing was not at all positive.  Not unexpected, of course, but it apparently went even beyond competitive issues, and it makes one believe that keeping Pickett would not have been a good thing for the chemistry in the locker room.  So, the team made this move and sent the Number One draft choice of just two years ago to the Eagles for a couple of draft picks.  

Coupled wth the release earlier in the off season of Mitch Trubisky and Mason Rudolph's signing as a free agent with the Titans this week, the Steelers now have one QB on the roster.  It seems critical now that the team draft a QB in this year's draft, someone who could be groomed as the 36 year old Wilson's heir apparant and probably sign a mid-level experienced QB (Ryan Tannehill?) to back up Wilson.  They will also no doubt bring in a Duck Hodges-type as an extra arm for training camp.   Speculation also hangs over the whole thing that the Bears may still be shopping Justin Fields, and might he be the Steelers long range answer for the QB spot?

In other Steelers news, former Ravens linebacker Patrick Queen was signed as free agent, and he too was introduced at that Steelers presser yesterday.   The Steelers have yet to adequately fill the spot left open due to Ryan Shazier's injury of a few years back, and this signing can only be a positive for the team.

The team also made a trade with Miami, and received defensive back DeShon Elliott in exchange for WR Dionte Johnson.  One report stated that the team wanted to shed themselves of Johnson so that his diva tendencies would not rub off on George Pickens.  Sort of Branch Rickey's old "addition by subtraction" adage.

I have written extensively of Pickett over the years, dating back to  his Pitt years.  How great a story it would have been had it worked out the way that everyone hoped.  I wish him well in Philly where he will be behind Jalen Hurts on the Eagles depth chart, and Hurts, we know, is no Mitch Trubisky, so we can't expect to see Pickett play a lot in Philly.

Oh, and here is a picture from today holding my birthday present from two years ago.  It was gift that Linda was excited to give me, and I was a most enthusiastic recipient.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust....

Say Hello to the Russell Wilson Era

The shocking news broke yesterday - it will become official tomorrow - that the Steelers will be signing free agent Russell Wilson to "compete" for the quarterback job with incumbent Kenny Pickett is 2024.

I say "shocking" because if you are a long time fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers you know that a move like this has definitely NOT been the Steelers Way in the past.  Wilson's credentials are well known: a multiple All-Pro in Seattle, where he twice took the Seahawks to the Super Bowl, winning it once.  His last two years in Denver have been rocky, some of the blame for which can be placed on Denver's coaches, but despite being benched last year, he produced 26 TD passes and only 8 interceptions, and his stats in the Red Zone have been great (you can look them up).  I can also remember a game at Heinz Field a few years ago where the Seahawks beat the Steelers solely on the skills of Russell Wilson.  Because of contractual complexities, almost all of Wilson's salary will be paid by the Broncos, so the financial risk to the Steelers is minimal, so maybe this isn't so shocking after all.

What I was not aware of is that Wilson has the reputation of being a diva and not a "good guy to have in the locker room."  Mike Tomlin, it should be noted, got more out of guys like Antonio Brown and Le'Veon Bell than any other NFL coach ever did, so I'm thinking that Russell Wilson won't be too much for him to handle.

The Steelers and Tomlin have stressed that there will be a "competition" for the #1 QB job with Pickett being the incumbent, but you have to believe that Wilson will be the first among equals when they all report to St. Vincent's in July.

As for Pickett, I wrote THIS PIECE about him back in November, wherein I stated that I felt that there was rush to judgement among fans, columnists, talk radio gas bags, and ESPN talking heads that said Pickett was done, that he would never be a great, or even a very good, NFL quarterback, and that I thought it was way too soon to assign him to the "scrapheap of mediocrity."   Apparently, the Steelers brain trust have also had some doubts, hence the move to sign Wilson.  As someone who followed Pickett in his years at Pitt, I really want him to make it and make it with the Steelers.   2024, though, is shaping up to be a make it or break it year for Pickett as a Steeler.

Russell is 35 years old, so who knows how much he has left in the tank.   The Steelers obviously feel that he is worth the risk.  Can he help produce  10-12 wins and a run in the Playoffs next year?  We can sure hope.  

By the way, Wilson announced his intentions on his social media platforms by showing Steelers highlights with "Renegade" playing over top of them.  If nothing else, he is savvy to his new audience.

One wag on Facebook posted that if it doesn't work with the Steelers, Wilson, once a highly touted baseball prospect, could take his talents to the Pirates, where he probably wouldn't be any worse than the 5th or 6th best player on the team.   I'd laugh if that wasn't so close to being true.

Finally, some shots of two Wisconsin Badgers who will now be teammates.

What A Football Weekend!

Well, you couldn't have closed out 2022 and begin 2023 in any better fashion, football-wise, that what we were treated to this past weekend.

Let's start with the College Football Playoff Semi-finals.

I can recall that in past years, like last year, these semi-final games have tended to be one sided and just not all that good.  Not so this year.

First game, TCU 51 - Michigan 45.  Explosive offenses.  Tremendous quarterback play, and a game that went to the final minutes.  Plus, Jim Harbaugh gets beat.  At the end of the game, my thought was, "Top that game, Georgia and Ohio State."

Well, they did.  Georgia 42 - Ohio State 41.  Explosive offenses.  Tremendous quarterback play, and a game that went down to the final three seconds before it was decided.

Currently, Georgia is a 13.5 point favorite in the CFP Championship game.  The Over/Under is set at 62.5 (bet the OVER).  Regardless of the point spread, if you have no dog in the fight, how could you not be rooting for TCU against the SEC behemoth Georgia?   Should be a whale of a game, and I can't wait to see it.

Then came Week 17 of the NFL.  I confess to missing all of the afternoon games yesterday for various and sundry reasons.  I know that it featured an amazing Tom Brady Performance, an amazing Aaron Rodgers Performance, a crushing victory for Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars, and an OT win by the 49ers.  Would have loved to have seen them all, but I didn't, but I did see yet another classic in the epic drama that is Mike Tomlin's Steelers vs. John Harbaugh's Ravens.  This one won by the Steelers 16-13.

It was won with :54 remaining when Kenny Pickett passed...

...to Najee Harris in the end zone....

...for the game winner.  It was a tremendous throw as Pickett had to scramble to his left to avoid being sacked, and an even more tremendous catch by Harris.  It also marked the second week in a row where Pickett led the team on length-of-the-field drives in the closing minutes of the game to win it for the Steelers.

The Steelers playoff hopes, amazingly (remember that they were 2-6 at one point), are still alive.  They need to beat the Browns at home next week, but are dependent on two other games going their way, so it's a long shot at this point.  This season, it should be remembered, was not going to be about W's and L's or deep playoff runs.  It was to be about the replacement of an 18 year vet Hall of Fame quarterback and the development of first round pick Kenny Pickett into the QB of the Future.  That story has yet to be written, of course, but it seems to be trending, as Neal Huntington used to put it, upward.

One last comment on last night's game.  However, you may feel about Chris Collinsworth as an announcer  - I happen to like him, but I know that many consider him a football version of Tim McCarver - he does know football, and a couple of comments he made last night were noteworthy to me.  One, he made a number of favorable comments about LB Robert Spillane, two, he said that Pickett's TD pass to Harris was worthy of anything Patrick Mahomes does, and three, he compared Pat Freiermuth to Travis Kelce.  That is some pretty serious company.

Already looking forward to next week.

Steelers 24 - Colts 17 and the Updated Grandstander Power Rankings

 

Benny Snell Scores the go-ahead (and winning) TD

That the Steelers bumped their record to 4-7 by beating the crummy Indy Colts last night came as no surprise, but raise your hand if you had two of the stars of the game for Rooney U being Benny Snell and Anthony McFarland.  Didn't think so.

The biggest take-away for Steelers fans on this one, as it has been and will be for the remainder of the season, was the learning and development of Kenny Pickett as the team's quarterback of the future.  Pickett's stats were not flashy, and there were a couple of possessions where the Steelers settled for field goals instead of touchdowns, but the Pickett led offense did build up a 16-3 lead at halftime, a lead that was squandered thanks in large part to the special teams horrid coverage on kickoff and punt returns.  Then, Pickett achieved a significant career milestone:  he engineered his first fourth quarter comeback of his pro career, a 75 yard, 11 play drive, which included three third down conversions and culminated in a Snell TD and a gorgeous Pickett-to-George Pickens two point conversion.  More significantly, this was the third game in a row in which Pickett did not throw an interception.

The growth continues.

Oh, and a tip of the cap to Colts Head Coach Jeff Saturday for some bewildering clock (mis)management  in the final minutes of the game.  With possession and a chance to tie the game and all three time outs remaining, the Colts took none of them until it was way too late to do them any good.  Time expired and Saturday ended up with two time outs still in his pocket.  I can only imagine how he will be roasted on Indy sports talk radio all week.

Time now for what you have all been waiting....

Circumstances prevented me from watching any football on Sunday afternoon (yes, we DO have a social life!), but I did watch the Sunday night game and the Eagles 40-33 dismantling (score not indicative of Philly's dominance) of the Packers.  That is one damn good football team and Jalen Hurts has to be the lead candidate for MVP right now.

Through Week 12:

1. Eagles (10-1)
2. Chiefs (9-2)
3. Cowboys (8-3)
4. Vikings (9-2)

Knocking on the door: 49ers 7-4, Bills 8-3, Commanders 7-5, Dolphins 8-3, Ravens 7-4, and Titans 7-4.

#greatsportsweek

The genesis of what turned out to be one of the coolest sports experiences of my long life of sports watching came in September when Linda gifted me with two tickets to the November 13 Steelers-Saints game at Acrisure Stadium.  Then about three weeks ago, Linda made mention of having never been on a road trip to see her beloved Penguins play.  A check of the schedule, a few clicks on the inter webs and BAM! we had ourselves tickets to see the Pens play the Capitals in Washington on Wednesday, November 9 and room reservations in the Chinatown section of DC, a three minute walk to the Capital One Arena.

Following your hometown team on the road is something that I have never done, and I found it to be an incredibly cool experience, and we were not alone, far from it.  The proximity of Washington to Pittsburgh makes a game at the Cap One Arena a virtual home game for the Penguins.  We met a couple of Pens fans from Harrisburg who said it's closer for them to come see the Pens play in DC than is would be in Pittsburgh.

That the Pens won 4-1 was a bonus, and when the victory became apparent, we got a text from our friend Tim Baker who said "Now you have to head over the The Steps."  In a tradition that began during one of the Pens' Cup years, Penguins fans head across the street the steps of the National Portrait Gallery to cheer for the victory and harass - in a good natured manner - the Caps and their fans.

Here's Linda as the crowd begins to gather....

...and coalesce into a full scale mob.... 

Then the rhythmic cheers begin...."Let's Go Pens"......"This is our house"....."You can't beat us"....."We've got five Cups"....and my personal favorite "Crosby's better".

It's hard to explain, but it turned into one of the coolest experiences I've ever had at a sporting event.  And the Caps fans who walked by were cool with it too.  Oh, there were a few middle fingers thrown to the Pens' crowd, but there were smiles as they were flipped, and most Caps fans just walked by and smiled at the scene.

As we were standing in line to get into the Arena for the hockey game, I said "I wonder when the Wizards are playing next?".  A check of the schedule showed that they would be at home the very next night playing the Dallas Mavericks.  Again, a few clicks on the phone, and we had tickets to see the Wizards go up against the Mavs and their superstar player, Luka Doncic.

We had really nice seats for the game, and the home team Wizards won 113-105, but the disappointment of the night was seeing Doncic held to only 17 points and, in fact, play pretty poorly.  Three nights later, Doncic put up 44 points and had a triple double.  Oh well, even superstars can have off nights, and as I always say, nothing is guaranteed when you buy a ticket to a sporting event.

Both the Caps and the Wizards games were played to crowds of 18,000 plus.

Before that basketball game on Thursday, we did some sightseeing that included seeing Hamilton (the statue of the first Treasury Secretary, not the musical). the White House, Washington Monument, World War II Memorial (a must see), the Viet Nam War Memorial, and one of my favorite spots, the Lincoln Memorial.

Linda decided to count the steps that you need to climb to get to see Abe sitting in that chair, and it came out to 87 steps.  Considering that we were there to see the Penguins play, that was a pretty serendipitous number.

You can't do the Nation's Capital in a day, can't even come close.   Perhaps a four or five day trip needs to be planned.  Going to have to check that Pirates schedule for '23 to see when they visit the Nationals and then plan for a longer stay.

So in the space of 24 hours, we had seen an NHL and an NBA game, and two days after getting home, we went to an NFL game.

I had not seen a Steelers game in person since I passed my season tickets on to my nephews back in 2003, and as easy and comfortable and hassle free as it is to watch on your TV set in your living room, I was very much looking forward to it.  I was not let down.  We had nice seats as you can see from the photo above, I got to experience the player introductions, including the crowd going berserk when T.J. Watt was introduced, got to see something called "Here We Go", which is an apparent pregame fixture about the Terrible Towel,  saw the Pittsburgh Steel Line, a drum line that plays at home games, and maybe best of all, got to experience the playing of "Renegade" early in the fourth quarter.   None of these things existed back when I attended my last Steelers game in the flesh.

And, oh yeah, the Steelers won, 20-10.  Life was good.

Unless someone comes through with airplane tickets to Qatar and primo seats for the World Cup later this month, I don't know how this past sports week can be topped.