Welcome to Paul Zeise’s weekly mailbag, where the Post-Gazette columnist and 93.7 The Fan radio host answers your questions about sports, life and everything in between. If you want to ask Paul a question, tweet him @paulzeise or email him at pzeise@post-gazette.com. This feature will run each Wednesday, so you have a whole week to submit questions.
Let’s get started:
Jeremy Tunney, @jeremytunney: Do you think the Bryant situation is savable? Has Tomlin let the locker room become to relaxed?
Zeise: The situation can be salvaged, provided Bryant wants it to be. In other words, I’m going to assume Mike Tomlin is going to have a “come to Jesus” talk with him Wednesday before or after practice. The ball will then be completely in Bryant’s court. He can either play or continue to pout. If he decides to stop listening to the people around him and go play, he will be a huge factor for the Steelers. If he doesn’t, he will spend a lot of time on the bench. The Steelers want him to succeed and will give him every opportunity to, and hopefully he understands that he is running out of chances. As for Tomlin, there are some things he allows that I wish he didn’t, but that’s no different now than five or even 10 years ago. I don’t think it is more or less relaxed now than it has been in the past. This Bryant stuff is about an immature player acting selfish and saying dumb things and has nothing to do with Tomlin or his rules.
Frank Allen, Zainesville, Ohio: What will you say this weekend when the Buckeyes crush your Penn State team? Will you eat crow? Will you apologize for calling Ohio State overrated?
Zeise: Yes, good point, I’m a huge shill and homer for Penn State. There are many things I’ve been accused over 20 years in this business of but “Penn State homer” is a new one to me. What exactly would I be apologizing for? I predicted Penn State will win the game. In Thursday’s column, I’ll even give you my thoughts on the score. If I am wrong, I am wrong. I picked Penn State to win, though, not because I have “The Nittany Lion” as my ringtone but because I think they are better than Ohio State. It is amazing how that works.
Jason Albert, @CityOfChamps76: Were you surprised the Pens waived Niemi so soon, or did you feel enough was enough?
Zeise: No. I was actually surprised they signed him. He has been a bad goaltender for at least the last two seasons. The shock wasn’t that the Penguins cut him, it is that it took them so long to figure it out. I wouldn’t haven’t signed him in the first place. And I probably would have cut him after he gave up four goals in his first nine minutes.
Joe Olszewski, @JoeOleSexy1967: I’m a native of Pitt but live in Cincinnati. The local media here are saying you’re reporting of the bengals postgame locker room is wrong.
Zeise: I got a kick out of some of these so-called media members from that town trying to defend the Bengals’ honor. They all seemed to be on a real truth and fact-finding mission, except none of them called or reached out to me. I was a beat reporter for years, and if a story like this was written about the team I cover, I’d have been on the phone with the author the first thing the next day. I would have asked who he talked to, what he saw, what he saw some players doing, how many he saw doing it. I would have then asked him if there were others who could verify my story. That is how reporters/anchors/talk show hosts who are really interested in the truth act. Lazy reporters or reporters who aren’t really interested in the truth don’t. This is the last thing I’ll say about it: Before I wrote it, I discussed it with four other reporters who were in the locker room with me and witnessed exactly what I did. Maybe these Cincinnati-based “reporters” didn’t see it, but I have no doubt what I witnessed and no doubt what happened in there.
Robert landsbach, @landsbach: Do u think @ThaBestUNO stole @TeamJuJu bike ?
Zeise: The theory that Martavis Bryant stole the bike so that JuJu Smith-Schuster couldn’t get to practice was one of the more hilarious ones. It was not true, though, as the bike was recovered. It was stolen and then sold on the black market for bikes in Mt. Oliver.
For all the newsroom people out there, please do not text/call/tweet/DM me for a comment on a missing bike. Though I hope he finds it, I also have bigger fish to fry. Thank you.
— Burt Lauten (@SteelersPRBurt) October 24, 2017
One thing that is clear, don’t bother Burt Lauten with questions about this as he is not in the mood to answer them.
First Published: October 25, 2017, 3:15 p.m.
