To Absent Friends - Charles Osgood

 

Charles Osgood

1933-2024

The passing of Charles Osgood last month at the age of 91 must be noted.  A CBS newsman for over fifty years, I first became aware of him from his daily "Osgood File" commentary on CBS radio.  It aired here in Pittsburgh on station KQV, and at 8:30 every morning while sitting at my desk at work, I would tune in to hear it, and hope against hope that the phone wouldn't ring until it was over.   The Osgood File ran on the radio from 1971 to 2017, when he finally retired from CBS.

He will probably most be noted for his over two decade tenure as host of the excellent CBS Sunday Morning Show.  Remember how he would always close the show by saying "Until next Sunday morning, I'll see you on the radio."  The Sunday Morning Show devoted the entire ninety minutes of its January 28th show to Charles Osgood.  It was excellent, and if you haven't seen it, you can no doubt find it on YouTube or some streaming service.   If you were fan of the show, you need to see it.

One of Osgood's specialties was delivering his commentaries in bits of doggerel or short pieces of poetry.  I trying to find some of these online to reproduce here, I came instead to to longer poems that I would like to have you read.

The first is called "The Responsibility Poem"....

There was a most important job that needed to be done,
And no reason not to do it, there was absolutely none.
But in vital matters such as this, the thing you have to ask
Is who exactly will it be who’ll carry out the task?

Anybody could have told you that Everybody knew
That this was something Somebody would surely have to do.
Nobody was unwilling; Anybody had the ability.
But Nobody believed that it was their responsibility.

It seemed to be a job that Anybody could have done,
If Anybody thought he was supposed to be the one.
But since Everybody recognized that Anybody could,
Everybody took for granted that Somebody would.

But Nobody told Anybody that we are aware of,
That he would be in charge of seeing it was taken care of.
And Nobody took it upon himself to follow through,
And do what Everybody thought that Somebody would do.

When what Everybody needed so did not get done at all,
Everybody was complaining that Somebody dropped the ball.
Anybody then could see it was an awful crying shame,
And Everybody looked around for Somebody to blame.

Somebody should have done the job
And Everybody should have,
But in the end, Nobody did
What Anybody could have.

And then there is this one called "Pretty Good"....

There once was a pretty good student
Who sat in a pretty good class
And was taught by a pretty good teacher
Who always let pretty good pass.
He wasn’t terrific at reading,
He wasn’t a whiz-bang at math,
But for him, education was leading
Straight down a pretty good path.
He didn’t find school too exciting,
But he wanted to do pretty well,
And he did have some trouble with writing
Since nobody taught him to spell.
When doing arithmetic problems,
Pretty good was regarded as fine.
5+5 needn’t always add up to be 10;
A pretty good answer was 9.
The pretty good class that he sat in
Was part of a pretty good school,
And the student was not an exception:
On the contrary, he was the rule.
The pretty good school that he went to
Was there in a pretty good town,
And nobody there seemed to notice
He could not tell a verb from a noun.
The pretty good student in fact was
Part of a pretty good mob.
And the first time he knew what he lacked was
When he looked for a pretty good job.
It was then, when he sought a position,
He discovered that life could be tough,
And he soon had a sneaking suspicion
Pretty good might not be good enough.
The pretty good town in our story
Was part of a pretty good state
Which had pretty good aspirations
And prayed for a pretty good fate.
There once was a pretty good nation
Pretty proud of the greatness it had,
Which learned much too late,
If you want to be great,
Pretty good is, in fact, pretty bad.

Not spectacular, perhaps, but both worth reading and each delivers a message worth remembering.

RIP Charles Osgood.

Sailing Down the (Video) Stream

Just finished up a few series on the old Streaming Machine....

"Fargo" Season 5 (FX/Hulu)

Just finished watching Season 5 of this quirky series.

This one takes place in Minnesota and North Dakota in 2019, and it opens up with an almost shot-for-shot duplication of the classic 1996 movie of the same name:  Two masked intruders appear on the front porch of a Minnesota household, break into the house, and kidnap the wife of a car salesman.

The similarity pretty much ends there, because the victim, Dot Lyon, played by Juno Temple, is no ordinary passive victim.  Turns out that she has been living under a false identity for several years with her husband and young daughter.   When a fluke circumstance brings her true identity to light in certain circles, it triggers a series of events begins that are played out in true Fargo-like style.

Turns out that she was married before, to a right wing nut Sheriff Roy Tillman in a neighboring North Dakota County.  Why did Dot leave him, and why does Tillman, played with a hateful intensity by Jon Hamm, want her back so desperately?  That is the crux of the series for this season.

The other major characters in this season is Dot's mother-in-law, Lorraine Lyon, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh.   She if the CEO of a "debt reduction" company, who brings new meaning to the phrase "ruthless".  Her character is terrific.

Throw in assorted Minnesota and North Dakota police officers, FBI agents, all the crooked cops and whacko militiamen under Tillman, and peripheral characters such as spouses, and Lorraine's chief of staff attorney, Danish Graves, and a mysterious force of nature character named Munch who is 500 years old, and you've got, well, "Fargo."

It is well written and acted, and it is quirky, funny, suspenseful, and violent, everything that you have come to expect from the series.  One of the underlying plot points this time around involved extreme domestic violence, much of it off camera, but not all of it, and that sometimes made it, for me at least, a difficult watch at times.

Still, if you've been a fan of this series, you've got to see this one.

Leigh, Hamm, and Temple

Three and one-half Stars from The Grandstander.

"The Crown" (Netflix)

The sixth and final season of this series was split into two parts.  The first four episodes revolved around the events surrounding the courtship of Diana, Princess of Wales, by Dodi Fayed, all leading up to her death in the tunnel in Paris, the callousness of the Royal Family  in the wake of that event, and the crisis that it brought towards the Monarchy.

The final six episodes jumped forward a few years and focused on Prince William and to a lesser degree, Prince Harry.   We got to see how William met and began to court Kate Middleton.   In the midst of that, one especially touching episode revolved around Princess Margaret and her final years and death.

The series concluded with the marriage of Charles and Camilla, and ended with Phillip and Elizabeth having a private conversation in a private chapel within Westminster Abbey.  Unless you wanted to time jump twenty-five years or so and conclude it with Elizabeth's death in 2023, this was as good a way to end this lavish royal soap opera as any.

In the time leading up to the Chuck and Camilla's wedding, we saw Imelda Staunton as the Queen having "conversations" with her younger selves in the persons of Claire Foy and Olivia Coleman, the actresses who played the Queen in prior seasons.  That was a pretty nice device, I thought.

Saunton, Coleman, and Foy as QE II

In digging around the internet doing some research for this post, I found a reference to a possible Prequel to The Crown that would cover the time from the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 up until the ascendancy of Elizebeth to the throne.  Personally, I'd love to see that, but the article that mentioned this was dated 2021, so apparently those plans appear to be dormant for now.

Taken as a whole, "The Crown" gets Four Grandstander Stars, but I give Season 6 only Two and One-half stars.

"Lessons in Chemistry"  (Apple TV+)

The 2023 best selling novel "Lessons In Chemistry" was big among the book club circuit, so it was a natural to be picked up for a movie or, as is becoming the case more and more, a steaming video series.

Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant chemist, but because she is a young woman in 1950's America, avenues for her to advance and excel in the man's world that science was at the time are limited.   Another scientist, a man of course, at the University where she works takes her on as an assistant, they fall in love, tragedy strikes, Elizabeth becomes a single mother and a community activist, and through a series of events, she also becomes a TV star by hosting a cooking show on a local TV station, where she still encounters the piggish attitudes in the Man's World of television.

Brie Larson, who produced the series, stars as Elizabeth, and she is quite good in it.  She also bears an uncanny resemblance to actress Cybill Shepard (on whom I have had a crush for well over fifty years).

We liked the show, although it was not one of those series where as soon as an episode was over we said "Let's watch one more episode right now!"  It took us a while to get through it.  Also, Linda tells me that this series differs quite a bit from the book, so you readers who loved the novel are hereby forewarned.

Two and One-half Stars from The Grandstander.

Coming up....

We have started to watch "Feud: Capote vs. The Swans" (FX/Hulu) which shapes up to be a delicious bit of scenery chewing trash, and I am looking forward to begin watching the newest season of "True Detective" (HBO Max) starring Jodi Foster.  We are also working our way, season-by-season, othrough binge watching "Seinfeld" on Netflix.  We just finished Season 6.

Taylor Swift

I might be an old guy, but I've never lived under a rock so, of course, I knew who Taylor Swift was.  She was a talented young pop singer/songwriter whose appeal was to a decidedly different demographic than the one in which I resided.   I knew that she sold a lot of records, but I could have told you that I was familiar with only one of them, "Shake It Off".  I had also seen her in those different Capital One credit card commercials and found her to be perfectly appealing and charming.

I was not, however, aware of the cultural behemoth that she has become until one Saturday afternoon this past summer.   Swift was playing back-to-back sold out engagements at Accrisure Stadium on a Friday and Saturday night.  As it happened,  Linda and I had tickets to a matinee theatrical production at the Benedum Center that Saturday afternoon.   As we went into downtown Pittsburgh for lunch before the performance, we were plunged deep into the world of Swiftmania.  Hundreds if not thousands of pre-teen and teenaged girls and in many cases, their mothers, decked out in Swift tee shirts, sweatshirts, spangled skirts, shorts, and tops, and more friendship bracelets than one could count.  Our impression of that experience:  "Wow, isn't this fun?"  We had a ball watching all of these Swifties enjoying themselves and having fun, and we were so glad that even in such a peripheral way, we were apart of it.

Of course, the Swift ball just kept rolling from there.  Sold out stadium performances across the country, stories of her generosity, her impact on the economies of the cities that she visited, all leading up to her being named Time Magazine's Person of the Year.

Then, of course there was her romance with Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce.  That's when things really started to explode and a strange and inexplicable backlash developed.  More on that later.

This past weekend, we decided to get with it by watching Taylor Swift, The Eras Tour movie.

Linda had actually seen Taylor Swift in concert many years ago here in Pittsburgh when she was actually, believe it or not, one of the opening acts for some other performer.  Her daughter Sarah, who watched the movie with us, had also seen her perform live and in person.  A movie, of course, will never come close to capturing the electricity and the you-are-there excitement of the real thing, but I must say that I was blown away by the production of the concert, the scenery, the costumes, and the accompanying singers and dancers, and, of course, by he charm and talent of Taylor Swift herself.   I "get" it as to why she is so popular.  

If, like me, you've never seen her perform live, see this movie and see for yourself.

It gets Three Stars from The Grandstander.

Then there is that backlash that I mentioned above, and it all seemed to stem from the romance with Kelce, Swift turning up at Chiefs games, and network television cameras zeroing in her during telecasts of Chiefs games.

On the positive side, Taylor Swift's presence at these games increased television ratings for the networks, and it became the cause for a boom in the numbers of new fans of the NFL, mainly among young women in the age 12 to 29 age bracket.   Even cooler, you don't have to look far to find stories of young fathers telling of how that have connected and/or re-connected with their young daughters in ways that they hadn't before all because of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.  

How is that a bad thing?

On the negative side, you are also hearing stories, mainly from grumpy old sportswriters and even grumpier old men football fans, along the lines of "why do they keep showing her n the luxury box" or "why do we have to look at her when we just want to watch the football game" or the always classic caveman line of "what does SHE have to do with a FOOTBALL GAME"?

Aside from her talent, here is what I know about Taylor Swift:

• She's a self-made billionaire, and she has achieved that without a whiff of scandal attached to her name (unless you count "break-up songs" about ex-lovers)
• She's charming.  Just look at those Capital One commercials
• She's wholesome.  Yes, she may wear semi-revealing costumes, but she never comes across as slutty. Madonna, she ain't.
• She's generous.  Stories abound about her gifts to charities - homeless shelters, food banks, etc -  in the cities in which she performs, each amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars.  There are also a myriad of stories of her giving six figure bonuses to her crew members.  Just last Sunday in Baltimore, she gave at least four M&T Stadium staffers tip envelopes containing one hundred dollar bills.

I mean, really, what is there not to like about her?

As we watched the AFC Championship game on Sunday, both Linda and I were caught up in the Swift sightings.  Why?  Well, we concluded, because it is just plan fun, and who doesn't need some fun in their life?  We will be among those watching to see how she can perform a concert in Tokyo on next Saturday night and with the help of the International Dateline, be at the Super Bowl next Sunday in Las Vegas.

Is the Swift-Kelce Romance for real?  Well, I believe that it is real right now, and yes, it would a great story if it became a happily ever after thing, but if it doesn't end that way, so what?  It doesn't make what is happening now any less real, and, in the end, it's no one else's business but theirs.

Championship Sunday - My Favorite Day On The Sports Calendar

As the headline implies, I don't believe that there is a day in the year, sports-wise, that I enjoy more than the Sunday double-header of the NFL Conference Championships.  Sure, the Super Bowl is played two weeks later, and that has become the High Holy Day for Sports in America,  but the stakes on Championship Sunday, the chance to actually play in the Super Bowl, always seem so much higher.  This is the day that I want sit with my wife, eat fun food, drink fun drinks, and watch two football games uninterrupted. 

Today's matchups came about as the result of four pretty terrific playoff games last weekend, and while nothing is guaranteed, I'm thinking that we are going to see two really good games today.

CHIEFS vs.  RAVENS

Over much of the last two decades the axiom had always been "you would be a fool to ever bet against Tom Brady and the Patriots."  Well, Brady is retired, Bill Belichick is out of work, and the Pats dynasty is now a thing of the past, so the axiom has shifted to "how can you even think of betting against Patrick Mahomes."   The Chiefs team as currently constituted may not be as good as they have been as recently as just last season, but Mahomes remains the best quarterback in the NFL and he alone is capable of winning games.

So, you go with the Chiefs, right?  Not this year.  For the past several weeks, the Ravens have sat atop my won Grandstander Power Rankings,  and they have that look about them that they will be stopped at nothing short of a Lombardi Trophy.  More importantly, they have Lamar Jackson, the presumptive MVP of the League this year.  Jackson has always been a spectacular athlete, but in 2023, he seemed to me to become a complete quarterback as well.   In the Playoff last week against Houston, he was dominant with both his arm and his legs.  The Chiefs are better than the Texans for sure, but in the end, they won't be able to contain Jackson.

I'm taking the Ravens at -3.5 over KayCee.

And, of course, along about 6:00 tonight I know that I could well be muttering "what was I thinking going against Pat Mahomes?"

LIONS vs. 49'ERS

Last week I wrote in this space of the Detroit Lions  "how can you not root for a team that hasn't won anything since the Eisenhower Administration?"  Over the course of this season and post-season, the Lions have become America's Team, the Born Loser who has risen up and become the lovable underdog.  More than that, though, the Lions are good, really good.

But so are the San Francisco 49'ers.  They are 7.5 point favorites in this game, although I think that the game will be closer than that.  

My pick is the Lions +7.5 over the Niners.   Part of this is because I want the Lions to win, but I also think that they possess the edge at QB in Jared Goff over Brock Purdy.

So that's how I'm betting, and I look forward to a most enjoyable afternoon and evening of NFL action.   May you all enjoy this day as well.

To Absent Friends - Lacey, Trixie, and Melanie

It's a crowded Departure Lounge this month, so let's catch up on three Absent Friends, listed in the order in which they left us.

Cindy Morgan

Cindy Morgan

1951-2024

The name Cindy Morgan may not ring a bell to you, but if you are an avid, or even a not so avid golfer, I am betting that the name "Lacey Underall" does.  In her acting debut, the then 29 year old Morgan played the character of Lacey, Judge Smails' (Ted Knight) not-so-innocent niece in the classic movie comedy, "Caddyshack" (1980).

A native of the Chicago area, Morgan started out as a television weather person and disco jockey in Rockford, IL.  She moved to the west coast in the late 1970's and got a job as the "Irish Spring Girl" in television commercials.  As I said, "Caddyshack" was her first feature film role.  There are not a whole lot of acting credits listed for her in IMDB, but she did appear in a sci-fi movie "Tron" (1982), and of course, there was also an appearance on "Love Boat."

Cindy Morgan will never be confused with Meryl Streep, but there is a lot to be said for achieving some degree of immortality by being in a Cult Classic comedy movie.  Please enjoy this clip of MORGAN AND CHEVY CHASE FROM "CADDYSHACK".

Joyce Randolph

Joyce Randolph

1924-2024

There are not a lot of acting credits in IMDB for Joyce Randolph, who left us this month at the age of 99, but talk about immortality!  Randolph was the last surviving cast member of one of television's most iconic sitcoms, "The Honeymooners".

Randolph appeared as Trixie Norton the wife of Ed Norton, and the Nortons were, of course, the best friends of Alice and Ralph Kramden.  "The Honeymooners" ran as a sketch piece on various iterations of Jackie Gleason's variety shows throughout the 1950's with the cast of Gleason, Art Carney, Audrey Meadows, and Randolph.  In the middle of that time frame, "The Honeymooners" was a stand alone thirty minute sitcom that ran of only one season, thirty-nine episodes in all, "The Classic Thirty-Nine" as they have come to be known. I own a DVD set of the Classic Thirty-Nine, and while Ralph's misogynistic tendencies (even though Alice ALWAYS had the last word) might not play so well here in the 2020's, no one can deny that they aren't really, really funny.

One interesting factoid that I picked up while researching Ms. Randolph was that in 1950, her pre-Honeymooners days, she appeared in Louisville, KY in a stage production of "No, No Nanette" with, among others, Audrey Meadows.

Gleason, Carney, Meadows, Randolph

"The Honeymooners"

Melanie Safka

Melanie

1947-2024

Melanie Safka was a singer-songwriter, who was quite popular in the early 1970's, and she was well known for singing at Woodstock in 1969.  She appeared and recorded under the name of Melanie.  She was popular at the time, and I owned one or two Melanie albums during my college days.  When news of her death at age 76 arrived yesterday, I was amazed to see that she never really went away and that at the time of her death, she was in the process of recording what would have been her thirty-second album.

Her most known songs were "Lay Down" and "Brand New Key", but I will leave you with this live version of her "LOOK WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO MY SONG."  After listening to this yesterday, memories of her clear and beautiful voice came rushing back.  Enjoy.

RIP Cindy Morgan, Joyce Randolph, and Melanie.

    

"When Harry Met Pablo" by Matthew Algeo

In May of 1958, former President Harry Truman, his wife Bess, and their friends Sam and Dorothy Rosenman did what many retired folks do - they took a cruise vacation.   They crossed the Atlantic on the luxury liner USS Independence,  and then spent ten days vacationing in the south of France and on the French Riviera.

During that trip, they spent an entire afternoon visiting famed artist Pablo Picasso.   It was visit between two towering figures of the twentieth century who, apart from their fame, could not have been more unalike.  Truman hated modern art.  Picasso was "modern art's" foremost practitioner.  Picasso was an avowed Communist, and Truman hated Communists.  Picasso was withdrawn and private.  Truman was a gregarious and as open as could possibly be.

The meeting of these two makes for an interesting story, to be sure, but check out the subtitle of the book:  "Truman, Picasso and the Cold War Politics of Modern Art".  Indeed, about two-thirds of the book is spent on the history of Art in America, and more specifically, on how "modern art", however one might define that term, was received in America.  Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, "modern art" was used as a flashpoint for far right political extremists and as a bogeyman for communism and as something that would undermine "all that is good for America", however one might define that term.  When the forces of Joe McCarthy were looking under every bed and in every closet for Commies, the Arts did not escape this shameful episode in our history.   This crusade was especially espoused by member of the House of Representatives named George Dondero (R-Michigan).    I had never heard of him, and he is primarily remembered today, if he is remembered at all, for being one of the sponsors of the legislation that led to the creation of the St Lawrence Seaway.  However, in his zeal for going after Art and those who created it, were he alive today, he would no doubt be wearing a red baseball cap and leading the charge to ban books in schools and libraries across the United States.  It was this aspect of the book where I learned something and was again reminded of the old axiom that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.

As far as Truman meeting with Picasso, some may have seen it as the former President seizing the opportunity to give a Presidential middle finger to the forces of people such as McCarthy and Dondero.  If there was one thing that Truman hated more than communists, it was people who sought to infringe upon the most  basic of American Constitutional rights.

The other one-third of the book focuses on the Trumans' vacation.  As he did in his terrific book "HARRY TRUMAN" EXCELLENT ADVENTURE", Algeo follows the steps of the Trumans' trip.  He was able to track down people whom the President encountered on the cruise ship crossing the Atlantic, visited the same spots in France that the Trumans did, and even discovered some of the people that the President encountered while there.  For example, there is a story of the Truman party inadvertently crashing a wedding reception in one of the French towns, and Harry ended up posing for pictures with the bride and groom.

He also visited the same spots where the Truman Party and Picasso met and toured, and recreated some of the same poses that the Trumans, Rosenmans, and Picasso stood for.  Interestingly enough, any pictures of the event were personal photos taken by Sam Rosenman.  There were no news photographers present.  The visit itself was barely noted in American newspapers at the time, and David McCullough's massive and definitive biography of Truman makes no mention of it all.  Can you imagine if a visit by the Clintons, Bushes, or Obamas was made to an artist of such status (say, Taylor Swift?) took place today?   The world would be bombarded by news coverage of such an event.

The Trumans never undertook another such vacation again.  The following year, the Rosenmans invited them to join them on a trip to Japan.  Harry declined saying "I would love to, but I don't dare."  As the President who authorized the use of atomic weapons against Japan, he felt that he would be less than welcome in that country.  Kind of sad when you think about it.

I loved the scene that Algeo used to close the book.  It was of himself waiting in an automobile dealership while his car was being serviced.....

"Decorating the drab gray walls of the waiting room are two generic abstract paintings, black-and-gray squiggles on white canvas, no doubt purchased from a wholesaler who specializes in furnishings for such public spaces.  Modern art is mundane now.  Some would argue that it's not even modern anymore."

As with all of Algeo's books, I learned a lot by reading "When Harry Met Pablo", and I learned it by reading this most entertaining account of a little known aspect of Presidential history.  History can be taught in an entertaining and informative manner,  It does not have to be delivered in massive, drab, and forbidding historical tomes.  If you type the name "Matthew Algeo" in the search box of this blog, you will find my reviews of his other books.  All are worth reading.

The Algeo Catalog

Every one of them a damn good read!

I give "When Harry Met Pablo" Three and One-Half Grandstander Stars.

Steelers Season Ends; Playoffs Thoughts, and the GPR

So, do we really need to rehash the Steelers 31-17 loss to Buffalo in the opening round of the NFL Playoffs this past Monday afternoon?  A loss that was exemplified by Bills' QB Josh Allen's 52 yard run through the Steelers's defense?

I think not, but I do have a thought to offer on that Allen TD scamper.

Remember the ACC Championship game of a few years back when Pitt's Kenny Pickett scored a similar touchdown run through the Wake Forest defense?  During the course of that run, Pickett faked a slide, which caused the defenders to pull up, which enabled Pickett to run into the end zone.  It was an act, the fake slide, that was considered so heinous that the Lords of Football outlawed it almost immediately.   Does that rule apply only to college football or is it applicable in the pros as well, because I could have sworn that Allen faked a slide on his run by executing a deke that would have made Sydney Crosby envious.

And how about that Bills receiver picking up a Gatorade bottle on the Steelers sideline and taking a drink from it?  If that doesn't fit into the definition of "taunting" and "unsportsmanlike conduct", it should. No flag was thrown on that one either.

Not that it matters, because the Bills were and are clearly a better team than the Steelers.   They are also a team that is easy to like, and I believe that my rooting interest will attach itself to the Buff Bills throughout the balance of the Playoffs.

As for the Steelers, one topic seemed to be cleared up fairly quickly after the loss when Mike Tomlin said that he plans to return to coach the Steelers in 2024.  A lot of the sportswriters in the area as well as the talk radio hot take artists have just been itching to fire Tomlin as this season went on.  Many seemed disappointed that that the team rallied to win their final three games and make the Playoffs, as it weakened their case against HCMT.

As for me, I am glad that Tomlin isn't going anywhere.  He's a good coach, if not a great one.  Who currently coaching in the NFL is better?  Bill Belichick for sure, and maybe Andy Reid, and a few up-and-comers (John McVey, Kyle Shanahan) may get to that level someday, but it's not a long list.  And remember this: when you hire a new head coach, you are far more likely to end up with a Nathaniel Hackett or an Arthur Smith than you are a Chuck Noll or a Bill Cowher or a Mike Tomlin. 

Oh, and one person who has not chimed in Tomlin's status is the guy whose thought matters the most: Art Rooney II.   We'll wait and see how that plays out.

One thing that Tomlin faces in 2024 is an up-in-the-air quarterback situation.   The same scribes and on-air gasbags who want Tomlin fired are also ready to cut loose Kenny Pickett.  "He's failed; he hasn't shown us anything" say the critics of Pickett's now 25 game career.

Back in November, I wrote THIS PIECE on Pickett that pretty much said that it is way too soon to pull the plug on Pickett.   Those same pundits who wanted Mason Rudolph run out of town a few seasons back are now calling for him to replace Pickett as the Number One guy.

My thought is that Pickett needs to remain as number one, but that a guy like Rudolph (if he's still here; he's a free agent who made himself look attractive in the final weeks of the season) maybe deserves a better chance to compete for the job at St. Vincent's next summer.  I also think that a first round draft pick like Pickett deserves a shot to be the first among equals at camp, and I most certainly want to see how he plays under the guidance of an Offensive Coordinator who is not Matt Canada.

As for the remainder of the Playoffs, I was positively delighted to see that two of the professional sports teams that I just plain do not like and could not bring myself to root for, the Cleve Brownies and the Dallas Cryboys both got absolutely throttled in their opening round playoff games.  Those games were fun to watch.

What remains are eight teams that are all teams that I could find a reason to cheer for.  I think that I will start off by rooting for the Bills.  They have a history of Super Bowl heartbreak, they have Josh Allen, who sure if fun to watch, and they have Damar Hamlin, and here are other reasons to root for the remaining teams:

• Baltimore: A Super Bowl win will only add more juice to what is already the best rivalry in the NFL, Steelers-Ravens
• San Francisco: Christian McCaffrey
• Detroit:  How can you not pull for a team that hasn't won anything since the Eisenhower Administration?
• Kansas City:  Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce.    And Andy Reid's mustache.
• Green Bay:  Who needs Aaron Rodgers, plus they spanked the Cowboys.
• Houston:  The CJ Stroud story is a great one
• Tampa Bay: The resurrection of Baker Mayfield

With all that said, I leave you with the Grandstander Power Rankings as we head into the Divisional Playoff Round this weekend.

1. Ravens
2. 49ers
3. Lions
4. Bills
5. Chiefs
6. packers
7. Texans
8. Bucs