Not without cause, the Steelers' dramatic drafting of Devin Bush has dominated discussion of their 2019 class. Everyone wanted defense, everyone wanted splash, and this offered a dynamite dose of both.
The offense?
I guess we'll have to wait, but I won't lie: I'd had an ideal in my head of a pass-catching tight end and a field-stretching wide receiver, not necessarily in that order, and neither of those came to pass:
Oh, there's a wide receiver up there, and it's a promising pick in Diontae Johnson, a razor-sharp route-runner out of Toledo whose style, size, speed and school size -- and nothing else yet, to say the least -- can be compared to a young Antonio Brown. It'll be fun at Saint Vincent to focus on how quickly he and Ben Roethlisberger, who's constantly admonishing young receivers to run their routes "like Julian Edelman," might mesh.
But what's that mean for 2019?
A rich man's Ryan Switzer?
Help on the return teams?
There's a tight end up there, too, in towering 6-foot-8 Zach Gentry out of Michigan. Having been converted from quarterback by Jim Harbaugh two years ago, though, he's much more a project than a work in progress. He's obviously got athleticism to hold a quarterback's scholarship at that particular school, and he did have 32 catches for 514 yards this past season, but his blocking is universally accepted as being well ahead of his hands.
Asked about Gentry's receiving, James Daniel, the Steelers' tight ends coach, candidly replied, "He was a quarterback. So I would say he's more depth at the receiving end. He has some adjusting to do. He can become a good blocker, I think."
Gronk II he ain't.
Please don't misunderstand: I'm not knocking either pick. That'd be silly six months from now, never mind the weekend they're drafted. I'm just stressing that this team, which has now taken a defensive player first in nine of the past 11 drafts, which hasn't taken an offensive player at a skill position since Rashard Mendenhall in 2008, will again be hoping to have an elite offense without adding elite talent.
That's what that is, too: It's hoping.
It's hoping Roethlisberger can find a go-to target above Switzer's pay grade, particularly on third downs. It's hoping Vance McDonald breaks from history and stays on the field. It's hoping JuJu Smith-Schuster can fight through double-coverage. It's hoping James Washington's combat catches make more than a cameo. It's hoping Donte Moncrief can be that field-stretcher.
For me, that feels like hoping a little too hard.
• Maybe one way to address all of the above is to run authoritatively.
Picking Benny Snell, a bullish back out of Kentucky with a Barry Foster build, feels like a luxury in the fourth round. But he'll arrive with both pedigree and fire ...
.@UKFootball ➡️ @steelers
Benny Snell is ready ? pic.twitter.com/AA7MIruZGF
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) April 27, 2019
This is the kind of energy Benny Snell will bring to the Steelers ? pic.twitter.com/Hf3qbxIa6h
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) April 27, 2019
... and that'll be a blast. On and off the field. Because a running back room that already had James Conner, the NFL leader in broken tackles last season, and Jaylen Samuels, a slasher in the mold of DeAngelo Williams and now this kid ... that's an offensive line's dream. Any blocker will attest they much prefer run-blocking to pass-blocking. And within that, they much prefer run-blocking when the runner assaults the holes at hand.
Soften and destroy.
• Found this unsolicited remark from Kevin Colbert about Snell to be striking: "One thing that we really want to point out about Benny: In today's college environment, a lot of these kids are skipping their bowl games as they head into their pro careers. That's a choice that they make. But when a player like Benny Snell ends up playing for his team in his bowl game, we really like to acknowledge that and give him credit for putting his team and that win over his own priorities."
Snell did that: At the Citrus Bowl, Jan. 19 in Orlando, Fla., he rushed for 144 yards and two touchdowns in No. 16 Kentucky's 27-24 victory over No. 13 Penn State. He also became his school's career rushing leader.
That's honoring a commitment. That's cool.
• All these corners on the roster now, most of them with inside/outside capability, will apply pressure to some challenging decisions this summer. But they'll apply even more pressure to Tom Bradley, who was brought aboard primarily for his teaching skills. As lousy as the Steelers have been at drafting the position, it could be argued they've been even worse at developing it. That's got to change.
• Back in the early spring, when most everyone was fawning over the Pirates' pitching and fretting over their offense -- both validly -- I was focused on the defense. I couldn't conceive of which positions on the diamond, save two outfield spots and catcher, where they'd be even reasonably competent.
And mind you, that was before Corey Dickerson was shelved.
Well, here we are, exactly a month into the season, an eight-game losing streak has deflated any and all buzz from the opening three weeks, and the most prominent, painful figure of all is 20 errors for a .979 fielding percentage that's fifth-worst in all of Major League Baseball.
And oh, oh, oh my, that doesn't come close to accounting for everything they're doing poorly out there. The decisions, if possible, are even worse than the execution.
This was Josh Bell's awful error in the 7-6 loss yesterday in Los Angeles:
The throw struck Chris Taylor in the back and rolled out to center field. A big inning got worse.
The problem isn't rooted in the throw, however. It's in Bell coming up with a case of excessive urgency toward a double play and failing to set his feet. You know, side by side. He instead grips the ball and shot-puts it forward, hoping to hurry the play in search of two outs rather than one.
This kind of stuff's happening all over the place, not just at first base. And I'm here to emphasize this point above all: Defense is not taught at the big-league level. Not in Pittsburgh. Not in St. Louis. Not anywhere. Decisions, instincts, situational ball is ingrained in the minors. And before any of that, it's rooted in the players themselves being naturally adept and sound in the field.
Pointing to the big-league manager when things like this occur is beyond insane. The GM and his endless row of lieutenants all knew precisely what kind of defensive team this would be. They had the projections. They had precedent. And this was the choice they made.
An even worse choice than Bell's.
• Jung Ho Kang's batting .160. He's got 12 hits in 75 at-bats and, lucky for him, four of those were home runs and three others doubles, or he'd stick out way more than he seemingly has. Not that Colin Moran is Pie Traynor, but it might be time to play him a little more.
Hey, it's not like the defense can get any worse.
• The season's not over. The Pirates are 12-14. If they were two games under .500 in late July, it'd be over. It's late April.
But this is what happens when one or two things go awry early, and the reinforcements come in the form of JB Shuck pinch-hitting for Pablo Reyes to lead off the ninth inning Sunday, down a single run. Whacking payroll by $30 million comes at a price. So does failing to draft/develop internally and needing to send up a 31-year-old Class AAA journeyman in that setting.
• Sidney Crosby's an eminently deserving finalist for the NHL's Hart Trophy, and Nikita Kucherov will emerge an eminently deserving winner ... but what was Connor McDavid doing in that pack?
The members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association who vote on the award need to make up their minds whether they're going to follow the stated guidelines or not. The Hart, according to the league, should given to the player "adjudged to be most valuable to his team." McDavid's Oilers didn't even come close to making the Stanley Cup playoffs, and that's been the generally accepted criteria -- or cutoff, if you will -- for being valuable.
A year ago, the PHWA chose Taylor Hall as the winner -- he got my No. 1 vote, too -- because of his enormous contribution in carrying the Devils to a playoff berth. That was within the spirit of the guideline. It was one of the best examples, really.
But this?
Completely nonsensical.
Anyway, this was my Hart ballot for this year:
1. Kucherov
2. Alexander Ovechkin
3. Crosby
4. Johnny Gaudreau
5. John Tavares
• There's plenty to be spoken for playoff mojo, and the Hurricanes are overflowing with the stuff at this stage. Already down five players heading into Game 2 yesterday in Brooklyn, they'd wind up losing two more -- goaltender Petr Mrazek and defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk -- and still overcome a third-period deficit to prevail. And they did so with every man on the roster contributing.
Not to compare every little thing in these playoffs to the Penguins, but this, my friends, is what Jim Rutherford rightly described as missing all season long. It's not necessarily about a player or two, and it's seldom identified with finger-pointing. Carolina's pushback has been something the Islanders didn't encounter against the Penguins but for a handful of shifts on Long Island. It's been relentless. It's been together.
Which is exactly how the Penguins' people have to approach addressing it.
• Curtis McElhinney relieved Mrazek and got the W for Carolina, putting him in awesome company:
E.J. had to wait forever for his first because backups in his day basically never left the bench. Same applied to Les Binkley, the Penguins' original starting goaltender, as he had to wait for the NHL's great expansion of 1967 for his first real chance.
• All of our city's teams are clearly doomed forever, right?