City’s sports fortunes have been spiraling
It started Dec. 4, 2017, one of the worst nights in Steelers history. Ryan Shazier went down on the Paul Brown Stadium carpet after tackling Bengals receiver Josh Malone. He didn’t get up.
Pittsburgh sports haven’t been the same since.
Shazier is making an amazing recovery from his spinalcord injury and is walking again. It doesn’t matter if he reaches his goal of playing NFL football again. He always will be remembered as an incredible inspiration.
The Steelers haven’t bounced back as well.
All of Pittsburgh’s sports teams have been a mess to one degree or another, making the past 15 months among the worst our once-proud, always-spoiled city has experienced.
Let’s stay with the Steelers. The head coach and players embarrassed themselves in the days after Shazier’s injury. James Harrison made Mike Tomlin look like a fool when he slept through meetings before finally being waived, signing with the Patriots and going to the Super Bowl (of course!). Tomlin, Mike Mitchell and Le’Veon Bell looked ahead publicly to a rematch with the Patriots before playing Jacksonville in the playoffs. Bell missed a walk-through before that Jacksonville game and showed up to Heinz Field late for the game. Mitchell taunted the Jaguars like a madman outside their locker room before kickoff. The Jaguars responded by humiliating the Steelers, 45-42. So much for their 13-3 regular season.
Team Turmoil — sorry, Kevin Colbert — was worse this season. Bell didn’t report before the opening game in Cleveland, earning the public wrath of teammates. “Just sit out all season,” David DeCastro growled. Bell obliged. He sat out and lost $14.5 million.
Antonio Brown was accused of throwing furniture off a 14th-floor balcony in Miami, had a meltdown at minicamp, threatened a national media member with violence, called a local reporter a racist, skipped work the Monday after a loss to Kansas City, drove 100-plus miles per hour on McKnight Road, went AWOL before the final game against the Bengals, asked to be traded, ripped Tomlin, Ben Roethlisberger and Colbert on social media and was named in a domestic-abuse incident. A real decent man, as Colbert wants you to believe, right?
On the field, the Steelers went from 7-2-1 to 9-6-1 and missed the playoffs in one of their worst collapses of all time. They tied a game at Cleveland when Tyrod Taylor was the Browns quarterback, blew a 16-point halftime lead to the Chargers at home, lost at Denver when Xavier Grimble lost his mind (and a fumble) and Roethlisberger threw an end-zone interception to a nose tackle and blamed their unfathomable loss to 2-10 Oakland on the X-ray machine at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Their fans were left to watch the Patriots match the Steelers by winning their sixth Lombardi Trophy (of course!).
Brown will be traded. Bell is leaving as a free agent. Shazier won’t play next season. How many teams can afford those losses? The Steelers will have a chance as long as Roethlisberger is quarterback, but it’s a reach to say they will be a Super Bowl favorite next season.
It wasn’t any easier for Pittsburgh’s hockey fans to see Alex Ovechkin and Tom Wilson on the right side of the handshake line after the Washington Capitals took out the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins in six games of the second round of the playoffs in May. This season’s team has a chance to pull the city out of its sports malaise but it’s not going to be easy. “We’re on the bubble to get in [the playoffs],” Jim Rutherford said last week. “I feel comfortable with this team, but I say that at this time being a little nervous whether we’re going to get in.” Injuries to Justin Schultz, Matt Murray, Patric Hornqvist, Olli Maatta, Brian Dumoulin, Kris Letang, Bryan Rust and Chad Ruhwedel haven’t helped. It might just be one of those years.
Pitt men’s basketball went 0-19 in the ACC last season, turning once-throbbing Petersen Events Center into a mausoleum and getting Kevin Stallings fired. This season has been no better; Pitt remains in last place in the conference after losing its 12th game in a row Saturday at No. 2 Virginia. Jeff Capel appears to be the right man for the job, but he has plenty of work ahead.
Pitt football lost at home to Penn State, 51-6. It won the ACC Coastal Division but was destroyed by Clemson in the conference title game, 4210. It lost its final three games and finished with an unsatisfying 7-7 record. Much more will be expected next season, Pat Narduzzi’s fifth as coach.
Pirates management made enemies all over the city before the 2018 season by trading Gerrit Cole and Andrew McCutchen. The anger quickly turned to apathy as fans made it a point to stay away from PNC Park. The team did get a few people excited with an 11-game winning streak in July then stepped way out of character by trading prized prospects for veteran pitchers Chris Archer and Keone Kela. But just when more fans were taking notice, the Pirates went 10-17 in August and became irrelevant again. They didn’t add to a solid pitching staff in the offseason by spending for a bat or two while division teams St. Louis, Milwaukee and Cincinnati made major improvements. Most of the experts — “so-called,” if you believe Pirates management — are picking them to finish fourth or fifth in the National League Central.
I am one of them.
City of Champions? Pittsburgh?
Not right now.
Not even close.