I cover sports for a living and know it is a privilege to have this job, as I get up close and personal with all of our local professional and college teams.
It is a wonderful career, but I have to be honest: In recent years, it has become a grind, as the teams in this region have sort of just been blah. I am all about being entertained, and there just hasn’t been much entertainment aside from a Paul Skenes start here and there and maybe a run by Duquesne or Robert Morris to the NCAA tournament.
The teams locally just haven’t been particularly interesting, the drama that has existed has been mostly contrived and the only thing that seems to be a constant is our local teams aren’t anywhere close to being contenders for anything significant.
In other words, this local sports scene needs some sort of fresh start and something exciting to happen because it has been far too long since that has been the case.
Enter the news of Tuesday — the Steelers have invited Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders to the South Side facility Thursday for a top-30 visit.
And there are plenty of reports Aaron Rodgers will make official what seems to be the worst-kept secret in sports, and that is he will be joining the Pittsburgh Steelers. There have bene rumors about him making a grand announcement Wednesday at Pat McAfee’s event at PPG Paints Arena, and I am rooting hard for that spectacle to happen.
Either way, the Pittsburgh sports scene needs Rodgers to take the starting quarterback job over and then the Steelers draft Shedeur Sanders in the first round. I know, I know. It would take a lot for the Steelers to trade up high enough to take Sanders, but they need to do it.
They need to do what it takes because this town needs a spectacle, and believe me — a quarterback room that includes Rodgers and Sanders would be entertainment beyond all of our hopes and dreams.
Could you imagine the possibilities and the weekly drama?
Could you imagine the shrieking from the people who hate Rodgers and Sanders and his dad, Deion Sanders, as all three are extremely polarizing figures? And the national talking heads would not know how to deal with the Steelers and would all fall over themselves to talk about them every day.
I don’t imagine Sanders would be well received by a certain segment of the yinzer Steelers fan base because he is extremely un-Steeler-like in the way he carries himself and conducts business. He is young. He is brash. He is a bit cocky. He likes to flash his bling and he isn’t shy about where he thinks he fits in the grand pantheon of football players. (He thinks he is the best.)
Forget for a minute that Sanders is one heckuva quarterback, a guy who probably will be a star in the NFL and someone who would likely solve the Steelers’ quarterback issues for the long term. There will be a certain segment of Steelers nation that hates him just because his antics would never have been accepted by Chuck Noll and the Chief.
Then you add another layer to it by signing Rodgers to a one-year deal to be Sanders’ mentor. I have already seen a segment lining up to hate Rodgers before he even gets here. These are the people who hate him because of his politics, the fact he is weird and does weird cleanses and meditation trips, he didn’t do the vaccine stuff, etc., etc.
Many of the people who hate Rodgers don’t really know why, but he is so polarizing that just about every time he plays or holds a news conference, it will send a group of people shrieking into the night about what a prima donna he is.
Either way, the group that hates Rodgers is pretty much the group that loves Sanders and the group that loves Rodgers is pretty much the group that hates the Sanders family. OK, that is probably a way too broad oversimplification and sweeping generalization, but who cares? Can’t a man dare to dream?
Now that I am thinking about this, heck, this needs to happen because it could be a lot of fun, especially if Rodgers is good and the Steelers play well and actually win a playoff game. And then he hands the baton to Sanders for next year and it is the same thing. Most will focus on what he does on the field, but a certain segment that just won’t have an open mind about him will shriek every time his name — or his dad’s — is mentioned.
OK, I have had some fun, I admit, and there is almost no chance the Steelers will do what it takes to trade up for Sanders. But they should. In all seriousness, that would constitute an actual plan at quarterback, one that makes sense and one that would end this musical chairs of retread quarterbacks the Steelers keep wanting to play.
Rodgers would be a great bridge quarterback for one year, and given his admiration of Deion Sanders and the fact he is at the end of his career, I bet he would be the perfect mentor for Shedeur Sanders.
It would actually work out well for the Steelers, and watching the weekly meltdown among the factions of people who hate the idea of one or the other or both would make it all well worth the price of admission.
First Published: April 8, 2025, 10:56 p.m.
Updated: April 9, 2025, 1:58 a.m.
