Some dude named Duck is the quarterback.
I mean, with all due respect to Devlin Hodges, that's really where the conversation should begin and end regarding the rest of the Steelers' 2019 season. Because the NFL's a quarterback-driven league, and the franchise linchpin was already lost when the promising protege went down Sunday, as well. And all that remains is an undrafted rookie out of -- hang on, I need to look this up again -- Samford University in Alabama.
It's over.
It's fat-lady-sung, Germans-bombed-Pearl-Harbor over.
It's as over as it could conceivably be with a 1-4 record, a long flight out west to face the Chargers up next, and so much else already having gone so very wrong.
And yet ...
"We know what the record is, and we know how it looks," Alejandro Villanueva was telling me at Heinz Field after the latest loss Sunday. "But nothing changes here. We still go out and play the same way, keep getting better. Nothing changes."
And yet ...
"We honestly feel like this defense is getting better and better, week to week," Bud Dupree was telling me. "It hasn't been good enough to win, but that's going to change."
And yet ...
The Browns were manhandled late Monday night by the 49ers, 31-3, out in Santa Clara, meaning they're now 2-3. And the Ravens take over first place in the AFC North at an almost-as-mediocre 3-2.
And yet ...
The division as a whole, including the Steelers, is now 3-11 against non-divisional opponents. And those three victories against non-divisional opponents have come against the Dolphins, Cardinals and Jets, who themselves are a combined 1-11-1.
And yet ...
The four opponents who've beaten the Steelers -- Patriots, Seahawks, 49ers, Ravens -- are now a combined 16-3. And beyond the 30-point blowout in Foxborough, the other three losses came by a combined nine points.
And yet ...
The 11-game schedule ahead includes four more AFC North games, as well as Dolphins (0-5), Cardinals (1-3-1) and Jets (0-4). Only the Bills have a lighter schedule the rest of the way:
Let's word this another way: The season's already had enough strangeness to cover half a decade. No point in ruling out that it could get that much stranger.
• It's wonderful that Mason Rudolph popped up at the Rooney Complex the day after being completely KO'd, but man, it'd be that much more wonderful if he didn't play in L.A.
I know no one wants to hear that. Insert obligatory comment about letting the doctors do their jobs, which easily can be translated to let my football team win. But there are concussions, and there's being sent into the next century, which is unmistakably what happened to Rudolph with that cheap, illegal helmet hit by the Ravens' Earl Thomas. And with concussion victims known to experience symptoms on a delayed basis, it sure would be nice if Rudolph could demonstrate a few successive days -- not hours -- to show he's OK.
• Besides, I kind of liked Duck, didn't you?
Not that much. Don't misunderstand. But there's something to be spoken for a 23-year-old of his pedigree having such a passion for the game that he persisted through not being courted by a major college, not being drafted by an NFL team ... only to stick it to everybody by showing up at Saint Vincent and just making play after play after play. And now this.
I liked this, too: At his stall following the game Sunday, he seemed completely comfortable with all the cameras and microphones suddenly crushing his space and offered this: "It's football. It's just football. I've been playing football all my life."
When he put it like that, everything we'd all just witnessed made so much more sense.
• Don't gloss over James Washington showing up in a sling. I get that Mike Tomlin and Randy Fichtner were under-utilizing him, but I also get that his ceiling's way higher than some of the people who've been playing ahead of him, and who now will take those snaps. More Donte Moncrief isn't a plus.
• The anonymous alleged friend of the NFL's worst owner allegedly told a reporter that the Redskins allegedly have Tomlin on a wish list of potential future coaches. And somehow, some thought this was news.
Sometimes I just can't.
• Le'Veon Bell thought so highly of his own value that he insisted on being paid like an elite running back and an elite wide receiver. Well, now that he's sat out an entire season, then signed with the Jets, he's played four games and has averaged 50.5 rushing yards per game (25th in the NFL), 2.9 yards per carry (54th), and 41.5 receiving yards per game (82nd overall, 8th among running backs), and one touchdown (tied for 90th).
Sure, there are mitigating circumstances, chiefly that the Jets are a disaster up front and don't have a quarterback. But unless my memory's foggy, the point had been made in this town countless times that Bell's performance was boosted by a veteran offensive line and a Hall of Fame quarterback.
Well, make the point again.
• Speaking of the Jets ... the one, true Jets are in town, which pretty much makes it Guaranteed Victory Night at PPG Paints Arena.
In one of the weirdest streaks in professional sports, the Penguins have won 18 in a row in Pittsburgh against the Winnipeg/Atlanta franchise, marking the longest such run of futility in any of the four major sports. The most recent Winnipeg/Atlanta loss here came way back on Dec. 26, 2007, at the Civic Arena, by a 4-2 count to the Thrashers. Weirder still, in that same span, the Penguins are 30-5-1 overall between the two teams, regardless of venue, including 15-4 since the move to Winnipeg in 2011.
And I say it's all weird mostly because it's not as if the Jets, in their current incarnation, have been bad. Far from it, actually. They've been blessed with some big names in Patrik Laine, Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele, Dustin Byfuglien, among others, and reached the Western final two summers ago. This past January, they showed up here having won eight of nine, "scoring at will," as Paul Maurice worded it at the time ... and lost, 4-0.
Remember the Penguins in Philly? Or the Pirates in Milwaukee? Or the Steelers anywhere in the Pacific Time Zone?
Sports can be funny like that.
• One can only guess at the severity of Evgeni Malkin's injury, but, being fluent in Mike Sullivan-speak on this subject, sure sounds like it'll be a month. Anytime he uses "longer-term," he means a couple weeks or more. But in offering the update Monday on Malkin and Nick Bjugstad, he called both "longer-term" but added that Malkin's "a bit longer."
Regardless, it obviously stinks.
Malkin reported to training camp in excellent shape and spirits, and he'd shown in the first couple games that he was ready for a rebound season. The task now, knowing his personality, will be to keep a focus on still having that rebound season but from the team perspective, not the statistical one. He's always been driven by team success, as he's powerfully illustrated by happily playing behind Sidney Crosby rather than being a solo star somewhere else, so that's not the issue. Rather, it's that he'll speak a lot about scoring a certain number goals, in particular, and judge himself based on a hard count. That's going to be tough now.
• Next time Sid decides to drop the gloves, there'd better be someone else on the ice deciding to jump in and keep that from materializing. That's not an indictment of anyone in that scene Saturday -- the captain was the one who challenged Pierre-Luc Dubois to go, as the latter told our site -- but it can't happen twice.
• I'll never, ever, ever get tired of the local-kid-makes-good storyline when it comes to the teams we cover. Good for Sam Lafferty, pride of Hollidaysburg, on living out the dream of every hockey-playing child in Western Pennsylvania.
Taylor Haase spoke with him exclusively Monday night about the NHL debut he could make tonight.
• Not sold on Jared McCann at center. Sorry. I'd be delighted to be wrong, beginning tonight, but I've never seen the two-way, playmaking form one would want from that position.
Not that I've got a better suggestion now. Circumstances are what they are.
• Can't let Juuso Riikola just rot. Kid needs to play. I'm getting that one on the docket early.
• Don't take either of the first two games too seriously. The Penguins were pulse-free in the opener against the Sabres and, in the next one against the Blue Jackets, they scored seven goals on someone named Elvis Merzlikins despite generating only 11 high-danger scoring chances. Now, on top of that, there's no Malkin, Bjugstad or Bryan Rust.
We literally have no idea what this team is. And probably won't for a while.
• Has Bob Nutting fired everyone yet?
• Better question: Everyone enjoying Tyler Glasnow and the rest of Major League Baseball's playoffs?
• Gerrit Cole's doing things in Houston that humans shouldn't do:
Gerrit Cole finishes with 15 strikeouts. Only two pitchers have ever had more in a postseason game
- Bob Gibson (17)
- Kevin Brown (16)pic.twitter.com/eqrsOvPxCD
— Yahoo Sports MLB (@MLByahoosports) October 6, 2019
Gerrit Cole's 33 Swinging Strikes in 71 Seconds. pic.twitter.com/Qm8QXAywfm
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) October 6, 2019
The only general manager in the industry who'd come up with a marginal-at-best return for a player of such pedigree also happens to be the most tenured in the National League. Twelve years and counting.
• That's got nothing to do with payroll. Not a single thing.
• Clearing this up, ideally, once and for all: The pitch-to-contact nonsense came from Neal Huntington and Kyle Stark. Not from Ray Searage, and it was applied all through the system. The objective, as Huntington openly described at the time, was to have hitters hit into their designated shifts. Searage went along with it until it was scrapped two years ago, at which point he and pretty much everyone else involved -- other than the two authors -- were comfortable making clear they'd never wanted anything to do with it. Huntington's always fancied himself a pitching expert, so he's often overruled people who actually are pitching experts.
• I don't have a firm feel yet for why Tom Prince was lumped into the outright firing along with Searage. But I do know that Prince is an intensely loyal man and that applied double when it came to Clint Hurdle. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Prince simply spoke his mind, as that sort of thing has cost others their jobs within the same structure. That's a Stark thing. Just as Huntington's fancied himself a pitching expert, Stark's fancied himself a Turkish general about to invade Syria.
• It's Winnipeg day in Pittsburgh. I've got this.
