Steve:
installment of the pregame of the Sports Porch. I know. I know. We're back.

Steve: We made it. We did. Back from vacation. We made it.

Chris: Amazing. Well, at least two of us made it back from vacation. Yeah, Mark is, as you can see, on vacation. You can see that I have my vacation hat on. Welcome to the Sports porch Black and Gold. We are back after, I don't know if you would call it a hiatus. I mean, a week off is considered a hiatus. Well, I've been gone for three weeks, man.

Steve: I mean, that is true. You did miss the one before that Mark and I had to do. Well, I mean, you called in.

Chris: I was in Charlotte at a Sheraton hotel. So welcome to the Sports Sports Black and Gold. We are back the show. We are still not at full strength, but we do expect the Grand Schwabini to arrive at the studio. He traveled to Chicago to see some family there, and he is en route as we speak. But I am here. I am your technical director, Chris. Sitting across from me in the studio is your hockey Jesus, freshly home from the Outer Banks. Well, most of me is. Yes. Most of you. Well, I mean, all of you. All of me. But not all of your possessions. Not all of my possessions. Right. Nor my vehicle. Right. I love when shit like that happens. Oh my God.

Steve: I do. Everybody has been there, right? It's the best. Where you've been a place and you're coming back and you're like, ah, crap, I got to come home from vacation. And then like you're on your way home and you realize the car's not going to make it home.

Chris: Yeah. Well, this, this car is newer, right?

Steve: It is. I mean. Less than 60,000 miles. Yeah. It's a Subaru, which I've never had a love affair with this car, to be honest. I've hated this car from the beginning. I've hated it since you bought it as well.

Chris: This was your wife's idea.

Steve: Well, I mean, don't get me wrong. The car is an absolute beast in the snow, but I can tell you driving up 95 North, getting to about Fredericksburg, everybody's been on that road one time in their life. And everything just starts lighting up on your dash panel. And the parking brake just starts going off and you're in the fast lane of 95 going 90. Were you experiencing the parking brake? Yes. That's what was making the car slow down. And I'm like, I have my pedal the whole way down. I don't drive slow. Was your whole family in the car with you? Everybody was there. Oh my god. Most of them were sleeping. Of course. Yeah, you know accidentally in the backseat Yeah, susan in the passenger seat either, you know doing some sort of uh Yara knitting thing, right? Uh, that's not the right thing. What is it when you embroider? She likes embroidery. So she might have been doing that or she might have just been tuning me out I'm not really sure I think a little of both more tuning you out She tuned me in loudly when I said what the fuck is going on with that?

Chris: Yeah. They're trained to hear that. There's no doubt about that. They know. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: You know, get into the slow lane. It's not going, you know, you know, a car's dead when it's dead. Yeah. When like you have it in park and you're like pushing the gas and nothing is happening. Yeah. It's pretty much time to shut it off and call the police. Yeah. Yeah. So the car is still in Fredericksburg. Still in Fredericksburg. It got towed from the Firestone. By the way, people at Firestone, thank you very much. It was good service. They did me well. And they were the only place that was open on Sunday. So it was at least a place to park it. They looked at it and they said, these are internal computer codes. You need to go to the dealer. The people at the dealership were pretty nice right now, but I have a feeling they're going to try and stick it to me. Yeah, they're not going to be nice for very long.

Chris: No. Yeah. Cause you're, you're not a local, you're not coming back to buy another Subaru there.

Steve: No, no, I am not. But I can tell you, I may not be going back for that car. It's all, it's, it's been paid. It only has, like I said, less than 60,000 miles. Don't try to pawn it off on me. Bought it, you know, in 2020. It's a great car. If you'd like a fixer upper, it can be yours. Yeah.

Chris: No, I don't need a fixer upper. No, I'm, I'm quite happy with my Honda Civic. Yeah.

Steve: But we've all been there, you know, we've all been on vacations where something unexpected happens. Absolutely. And you just kind of, you know, you work your way through it. It's called adversity.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. Yeah. Well, and if you're going to put it on the scale of adversity, it's like there's an adversity scale and there's a pissed off scale. Right. This is higher on the pissed off scale, I think.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: I mean, it's not like you're, it's not like you're trudging through muddy water with a machine gun and you have to try to live. That's adversity. That's that's much higher for our military veterans out there. Yeah, that's adversity. This is like your dumb Subaru broke down after a family vacation and you had to leave it 400 miles away. That's 256. Whatever. That's really pissed off. Yeah. I used to use that when I was back in my banking days. I would tell people all the time, interest rates, it's a matter of the pissed off scale. Are you going to be pissed off if you lock a rate and they go down? Are you going to be pissed off if you try to float it, gamble, and they go up? Which one's going to piss you off more? Yeah. But that's another podcast and another story for another time. I had my truck, Big Jake. For those of you who don't know, I had a truck called, my kids named it Big Jake because it was this huge Ford excursion. Huge. Other than it was huge. Yeah, we actually had the garage built specially for this car when we built the house.

Steve: Hey, somebody sent me a hug. Thank you very much for that.

Chris: Yeah, let's see. Let me see. Let me see that. I don't see a hug. Where's the hug? Oh, yeah, up there in the that's right. The hugs. OK, they care about you. Uh, thanks Patrick for caring, but we went on a cruise and we came back this Ford excursion. We came back to New York city after the cruise and it wouldn't start. And I had the same issue. I had to drive all the way back to Pittsburgh and right on. We found a local, a local dude. Um, like this was in, wherever the cruise boats take off from. I don't remember. I don't, I've never taken a cruise. I don't remember which borough we were in. It could have been Brooklyn, the Bronx, maybe, I don't know. But anyway, there was a local that the tow truck truck driver took us to this local joint, this local auto body shop. And that guy was, I mean, I thought I'm going to get crushed. I'm in New York now. Now of course this is before inflation went haywire. This is like 10 years ago, but still I thought I'm done.

Steve: You know, this is going to be like 12

Chris: Well, not that, but it's not going to be cheap. This guy was able to get a starter for the excursion and put it in. And I think he charges like $150. Yeah. It was amazing. Yeah. You should have given that guy like 200 bucks.

Steve: I don't even remember. Thank you. Right. Here's my money. You deserve it.

Chris: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And we got on the road. He had it fixed within like two hours. Lauren and I went to lunch at some pizza joint and then came back. And probably spent 60 bucks there on pizza. I don't even remember. I just remember I was really high on the pissed off scale. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I mean, you didn't actually have a great experience flying this time around.

Chris: No, that that was. Yeah, that was we went to Grand Cayman and we got to the airport at like four in the morning. Right. Got all the way up to the gate and our and our connecting flight out of Charlotte, our plane from Pittsburgh to Charlotte. the connecting there, the flight was canceled and they kept saying it's being delayed until 3 p.m. I said, it's, it's, it's five 30 in the morning now after the two hour line, that's not a delayed flight. Don't tell me it's delayed. It's canceled.

Steve: Well, it turned out it was the same flight cause you were the only one on it.

Chris: Yeah, so long story short, yeah, we had to fly to Charlotte that night and we obviously had to take a connecting flight the next day, so we stayed out of Sheridan. Now, I will say that American Airlines even though it was a maintenance issue. This is one funny story, and then we'll get to sports here, guys. I'm sorry. We are going to get to sports. Yeah, it's been a couple weeks since we've all seen each other, so we're kind of catching up here. Catching up. Give us your comments. We have Instagram in the house. We have Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube. Fantasy Alpha still doesn't have that premium Twitter account yet, but Tony tells me he's going to get it. They'll be in the house when he gets it. All right, Tony. But we have Twitter in the house as well. Twitter in the house. Yeah. So American airlines, they, they had us, um, they had everything all booked and all ready and they had a hotel for us. Yeah. That's nice. Which was, which was nice. And the hotel we stayed in, it was a Sheraton down in Charlotte. Uh, it was five minutes from the, from the airport and it was actually, it was actually clean. They gave us money for whatever, you know, and the next day, uh, or the, the, yeah, the next day the flight was almost empty. because everybody had rescheduled and stuff. Um, so, you know, I mean, Hey, what are you going to do?

Steve: It's, it's what you get, you go through it sometime. Vacationing is a sport. Yeah.

Chris: Vacationing is a sport, but we had a marvelous, let me tell you guys, if you ever want to go somewhere that is like beautiful, And, and, and you can make a, you know, make, save a little cash cause it's not cheap, but go, go to Grand Cayman, go to Cayman islands.

Steve: Yeah, I know. You'd love that.

Chris: That's where our next boys trip should be. I'm telling you, we can, I love it.

Steve: As long as Subaru doesn't take five grand off of me, I'm going to put it towards that.

Chris: I got a feeling you're screwed when it comes to that.

Steve: Maybe so, maybe so. Hey, Mike, by the way, I had enough rye at the Outer Banks to last me the next two weeks. So I don't think I'd need one right now. I could use one. Don't get me wrong. But yeah, we were sampling some different whiskeys down at the beach. It was fun.

Chris: H.J., you need a rye and ginger, says Mike Lawrence from Facebook. That's right, Mike. There you go. CD, Planes, Trains and Automobiles. One of my favorite John Candy movies. Right in your eye. Yeah, I know. I know. Vacationing.

Steve: Poor old Rupert.

Chris: Now, I just wrote Ruprecht. Yeah, that's not planes, trains. That's a plane. No planes, trains and automobiles was John Candy and Steve Martin. Ruprecht was with Michael Caine and Steve Martin. Yeah, somebody, somebody out there watching. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Michael Caine played a ripoff artist over in the south of France and a hustler and Steve Martin tried to bust in on his territory. We have great fans. You know who else was in that movie? Joan Cusack.

Steve: Joan Cusack, back when she was hot.

Chris: Yeah. I don't think she was ever hot. Mike, Mike Lawrence says Grand Cayman is the bomb. Go. Go. Go. Now, we do have a Trader Joe's segment this time, and I'm counting on my wife to bring. Now, my wife is uber reliable, but she's also very busy with other things. I'm starting to get worried because I don't see it coming down the stairs yet, so hopefully it makes it down here.

Steve: Well, I mean, you know, either we do it or we make something else up. We're pretty good at making stuff up.

Chris: Well, we do have something in the fridge that you didn't want to try that maybe we'll have to bring out. Yeah, that's fine. And I'll have to do a little editing on the fly. It's a sparkling. So we have some comments here on Instagram. What is the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels? That's right. Thank you, CD. I love that movie. Instagram in the house. We have a first official. Chris Chada is back with us. He says the Outer Banks, the fam and I were in Corolla last year. We loved it. Thanks, man.

Steve: That's where we go.

Chris: That's my man, Chris Lamont 412 says, Good day, gents. How are you doing on Instagram? So we try to get on Instagram on on Pittsburgh Beautiful's Instagram because it has 50000 followers as much as we can. Stream yard's a little wacky with that sometimes. So if you're watching, thank you. Appreciate you being here. This is the sports porch, black and gold. We're going to drop the podcast right after the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you get your podcasts. I miss the pirate. The pirate we are.

Steve: Well, we we've missed the pirates the last few weeks to the last 20 years.

Chris: And obviously we drop it right after the show. You can also follow us on YouTube at the sports porch podcast and listen to it on radio PGH. Listen, you know, if you say Alexa, play radio PGH, it'll just start playing. PGH comes on. Yeah. And your garbage list will be playing my garbage playlist, which people like, by the way.

Steve: Oh, I know. Mark doesn't understand real music. No, he doesn't. He likes that rap stuff. Yeah.

Chris: And Yo-Ho Son is in the house on YouTube.

Steve: Hey, Carolla, that's what he's saying. You don't say Carolla. It's Carolla. Carolla. Did I say Carolla? Well, I've been saying Carolla for years and years and years, and it's always been wrong. And I've been going to Carolla for 25 years now.

Chris: Thank you, my love. Thanks, Lauren. There we go. She is the best. She is the best. Thank you. Bon appétit. Thank you. We must now of course… It's a that's coming up in the Philly show.

Steve: No, no.

Chris: We must, of course, thank the Pittsburgh property diva Lauren Klein for delivering our Trader Joe's snack time product tonight. So there she is, my beautiful wife. Love you, sweetheart. She is the best. She is the best. OK, so what are we going to do here? I mean, we got we got a lot. This is like, you know what this is?

Steve: Jump into something or we can do something ridiculous.

Chris: This is the this is the revival zone. This is like This is like, uh, how do you come out of the dead zone? I got a question for you while we're waiting for Schwaber to get here. Okay. I want to ask you this question and it's a general sports question. Uh, and Chris Chata says on Instagram, the pirates have tanked, but I did hear Jared Jones is close to returning. Could that be a silver lining? We're going to get to the pirates in a second.

Steve: We need a silver lining.

Chris: We're going to get to the pirates in a second. parachutes but this occurred to me this occurred to me literally for those of you who don't know i was summoned to jury duty this week and i can't discuss anything about it we all know that so i'm going to leave those details out of it please do but we all know it's it's it's it's a civic duty so you feel a responsibility but it's a painful civic duty from it's it's it's adversity on a very low scale And honestly, it's the pissed off scale rises as the day goes on and you're still sitting there like I took naps today that were not good naps. But on the way home… Wait, wait, wait.

Steve: When you were napping, did somebody actually wake you up and say, dude, you're snoring?

Chris: No, because what would happen is I would start to snore and my head would go back and my sunglasses would fly off and I'd wake up and then people would start laughing.

Steve: On the way home source of entertainment.

Chris: I was this pod. I probably I probably was. Mark is on his way. You better keep the Trader Joe's segment until he gets. Of course, that's why we're having it, because he is the hungriest man on earth. Yeah, we will feed him the most interesting man on the planet.

Steve: You know, that's not going to be enough. So you better have dinner ready for him when he gets home.

Chris: He can have. Yeah, that's true, Amy. But anyway, all right, off track here, Pat off track. Um, I had this thought on the way home because I was listening to the fan and they were of course, bitching and bitching about the pirates, the state of the pirates. And then of course they transitioned into a little bit of preseason. We're going to talk Steelers preseason of course, because we're Jones in for football now. I got a long list. Uh, good. And then I started thinking to myself, okay, You got the Pirates, you got the Penguins, who there's a lot of questions about. Right. Then you got the Steelers. The Steelers are in a transition phase right now. Oh, my God. One of the biggest in a while. In a while. Are we seeing, Resident Yenzer, Hockey Jesus, are we seeing the downfall of Pittsburgh sports for right now? Well, I mean, are we going through a very deep trough? Because we've always had, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Just this is where my thoughts. It's worth interrupting. Yeah. This was my thought process. Okay. Um, the Steelers of the seventies, the pirates of the seventies. Eh, they were good. Well, the late, yeah, they were good. They won the world series in 79. They won the world series early in the seventies, you know, beating my beloved Orioles. They were good. The pirates of the late 80s, early 90s… Well, the penguins of the 70s were off. Well, but hear me out. The penguins of the late 80s, early 90s, really, and then the Steelers' resurgence and now it's like all it's almost like the city of champions always had somebody to fall back on now it's almost like look the penguins are not in a good state i don't care what anybody says as an amateur hockey fan and i am still an amateur stress the amateur i would say yeah i would say that the penguins are in a state of flux And you can have all the arguments you want about Crosby being one of the greatest. He was and probably still is. The Pirates are, you know, and the Steelers are in this transition that honestly could go either way right now. Remember, I talked about this a couple years ago when I said when Ben Roethlisberger is gone, Tomlin's got to find a quarterback. He hasn't had to do that in his career. Are we in a downturn of Pittsburgh sports? No, no, we are not. Oh, that's a definite answer.

Steve: Well, here's why. Look, when I was a teenager, just a wee lad, the pirates were past the glory years of the seventies. Right. It was before bonds and Bonilla and all those guys came around. Right. Right. Talking like early 1980s. Right. The Steelers were garbage then. They were absolute Trump they were they were trailer trash. They were a garbage, right? Right and the penguins that was before they got Lemieux, dude Like they were not any better. Nothing looked good I equivalent this time to that time and here's what happened. It was about two years three years of oh my god, like who's gonna come around right and Then it was like, oh well we got You know, we got Bonilla, we got Bonds, we got Lemieux, you know, the Steelers finally got on track. We got Spanky Lavalier. Well, no, not him. But then the Steelers finally got out of their funk because they hired a new guy. You know, Coach Cower. And that was a little bit later, and it took him a few years, but he got the Steelers back on track. I just feel like that's where we're headed. We're headed in the direction where Tomlin's going to be setting off into the sunset soon. Please, God. And the Penguins are going to end up getting somebody who's going to rejuvenize the franchise. Maybe Sid will be around for it, maybe he won't. We'll see when he signs his contract. If he signs it for four years, I think he'll be at the end of that.

Chris: Okay, so keep going. We'll save the Penguin stuff for later, but go ahead. Well, this is about the whole… That's all I had to say.

Steve: So what you're saying is that this is… The Pirates are already on that trajectory with Skeens and others. OK, so I think they're all I think they're ahead of the curve of what's coming for for for the Steelers and definitely for the Penguins. But I think you're right to say that maybe those two franchises are either at bottom or headed towards the bottom. OK, so you're you're saying it's not unprecedented in Pittsburgh sports history for that to happen.

Chris: OK, so I guess where I'm going with this is I've been in Pittsburgh for 31 years now, believe it or not, 31 years.

Steve: past the eighties. Yes.

Chris: And you did not live through this. No. Well, I lived through part of it when we lived together in Philly and you would scream your head off at the television when you watch the Steelers.

Steve: No, that was different because by that time the pirates were pretty damn good franchise. Yeah. And the penguins were definitely on their way to glory. Yeah. Well, I guess, you know what I mean? I guess it was just before that, like just before 1988. I'm talking the 82 to 86 years. They were

Chris: Terrible well when when the grant when the grand Schwab beanie enters the studio because he's here now and he's getting set up Yeah, i'm gonna pose this question to him um Because my my concern is the state of flux that all three of these franchises are in right now Yeah could lead to one of these situations in which we have Somewhat bottom feeding teams for a good 10 years and that's no fun. That will absolutely not happen. Okay, you heard it here first

Steve: The Pittsburgh Steelers, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the Pittsburgh Penguins will not be bottom feeders for more than three years. You can take it to the bank.

Chris: All right. All right. Huh? But why?

Steve: Why? Why they will not? Because the Pittsburgh Penguins spend money and they will go out and get somebody before they have to go and draft somebody to be that guy. I'll give you that. They won't stay at the bottom. In order to stay at the bottom, you have to be like the pirates. Now, the pirates hit golden nuggets every now and then. This is their golden nugget. And they only got three to four years to be able to do something. They're headed back to the bottom. That's a guarantee. and the Pittsburgh Steelers, dude, let's face it. I mean, the Steelers nation, and we'll get to this when we talk about reseason, are overly optimistic about the Steelers all the time. And we're talking about the Steelers hitting bottom. They haven't even gone below 500. And I know that 500 is the wrong level to look at, but if you want to hit rock bottom, you dude, you have to be a, you have to be a three and 14 franchise for like three years in a row. Okay. Never happened to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Chris: Okay. Okay. And, and, uh, as we have it now, the grand Schwab beanie has finally arrived. How was your, how was your, uh, how was your flight from Chicago? Make sure you talk right into the mic, bud. Just reminding me because I typically don't. Yes. Yes. Why are you talking? I don't know what's going on. I got to check these mics.

Marc: What do you what do you think about about what I said about my my my you're basically what you're saying is are we in for a downtrodden time in Pittsburgh sports?

Chris: Right. And my reasoning is the penguins have new ownership. They're in flux. They have an aging star, an aging group of stars. Right. We're not completely sure what Fenway Sports Group is going to do. Right. That's true. The pirates, obviously, and we're going to get into this in a minute. Obviously, they've remained the pirates. And the Steelers are in a very transitional period with a coach who can only at this point hang his hat on one Super Bowl victory years ago, no real playoff success in the last almost 10 years. barely hanging on to a 500 record during most of those years, um, never having a losing season. Uh, yeah, I get what you're saying, but now he's got to find a quarterback and really we don't know where that's going to go. So are, do you think we're in for that kind of, that's my concern.

Marc: I think there's a chance that that is going to happen. I would, I would put it to you this way though. The most likely team to stay downtrodden is certainly the Pirates. I would actually put the Penguins kind of number two. And the reason for that is, you know, look, one of the things about hockey, Hockey is about tremendous luck. It's true. Like, you know, for example, if the Penguins don't get Lemieux, if the Penguins don't get Crosby, they may be looking at zero cups. Right. And they've been horrible forever. Right. You know what I mean? And the bottom line is that Crosby's years are numbered and they need to get lucky a third time in a row. And that's going to be pretty darn hard to do. Yeah. Now, you can be competitive in hockey. Right. You know, so, I mean, when I say downtrodden, I mean, you know, not being a serious contender. But I would imagine they'll linger around 500. And the Steelers, I would say, they probably have the best chance of something good happening, and that's only because There's so much parody in the league. And it's true that there are certain teams that get stars and they're good year in, year out. you know, you can also go from, you know, a six and 10 team to winning the Super Bowl the next year.

Chris: Right. You know, well, the NFL has achieved, yeah, it's set up, it's set up that way.

Marc: So all you have to do, like, all you have to do is, so to speak, get lucky. Like, like, so for example, and, but the difference between that and the NHL is you have much more opportunity to get lucky in the NHL, in the NFL. because the NFL has a draft based out of college where anybody drafted could actually be a pro bowler, you know, no matter where they're drafted. So like, for example, the Seattle Seahawks got lucky with Russell Wilson in the third round.

Chris: They sure as hell did.

Marc: You know, I mean, like, you know, that can happen. You don't have to have, like, the 11th pick to get Ben Roethlisberger. Right, right. So, yeah, I mean, so I don't know. The bottom line is right now they're kind of stuck in, you know, in malaise. They're kind of like in this… Just say it.

Steve: Say the words, mushy middle. They're in the mushy middle. And I hate that term, but that's where Pittsburgh is in general now, if you really want to just…

Chris: lump it all together. I actually think the whole city's in the mushy middle right now. I agree.

Steve: That's another podcast. I think it's like everything is just like eh.

Chris: Okay, so we got the whole band back together now. Schwaber's back from Chicago. Steve's back from the Outer Banks. I'm back from Grand Cayman. Everybody had a nice time, right? We can talk all fair about that. Yoho Sun chimes in here. He says, one team you can always count on is PennDOT.

Steve: I have to tell you that VDOT in Virginia, they really hooked me up. You know, I was in that lane and I was there by myself for about 20 minutes. It was pretty harrowing being in that lane on the left with cars passing you going 90. And then when the truck came, people still didn't slow down, but it made me feel better. What is the DOT?

Chris: VDOT, Virginia Department of Transportation. CD says the Penguins put players around stars, which kept them in Pittsburgh for a career. Pirates don't. And the Steelers rely on a tradition which gets you wins and playoffs, but not championships. I mean, all that's up for debate. So what are we going to do tonight? Tonight, we're going to obviously we're going to talk about the Steelers preseason takeaways from that. The Grand Schwabini. Do you have a prediction for us that you can come up? OK, perfect. Can't wait for that.

Marc: I guess I missed the Pirates talk.

Chris: No, we we were purposely we we purposely filled dead air with vacation talk. Did we wait for you, brother? Absolutely.

Steve: Go back to the beginning and watch it. Yeah, he will. I'm sure he will. No, he won't.

Chris: He's, he's, uh, we have the buckos report and we have what we are watching, which I have one. If you don't have one Schwab or it's cool. Steve does it. Steve's got one he wants to do next week. So we'll just do mine. Uh, and then I do have a stump, the ends are question it's football related. Uh, and then we have our trader Joe's product of the week. which I think you guys are going to enjoy. You can already see it, but you just don't know what it is provided by my lovely wife. So let's do this. Let's do it. Let's talk about the buckos. Let's get it. Let's do it. So the buckos report the season is now in shambles or is it what we expected?

Marc: They are who we thought they were.

Steve: They're regressing to the norm. Yeah. Which is little less than 500. It's where they belong. Yeah, I mean Not really in the playoffs are a schedule thing. They just happen to play a whole bunch of good teams on the road Yeah, and remember what I said about skeins in order for him to be a great pitcher when he goes back around and pitches to these hitters who can figure him out He's gonna have to learn a new trick and that's what's gonna have to happen I mean, it's it's just part of the you know, the cycle of 162 friggin games. Yeah It's just too long and you can't you can't rely on those those good streaks because the bad streaks always come you just have to be Consistently good the whole season.

Chris: I I think I think none. Are we really surprised? Yeah at these moves at the trade deadline? No. Are we surprised that they're not panning out the way we would hope? No. You know, uh, Dela Cruz, you know, he's supposed to be like in the plans for the next three years. Like we've heard this story before. Um, the one bright spot that I actually predicted weeks and weeks and weeks ago was that Joey Bart would be the catcher. Joey Bart is the catcher.

Marc: He is, uh, he is performing very well.

Chris: And I was wrong. He's not a 1-1 pick. I think he was a 1-2 pick. But still, he looks like he can obviously play the position well, and his bat is not too shabby.

Steve: But I think he's going to have to get some rapport going with these pitchers. The pitchers haven't pitched great with him behind the plate.

Chris: I'm not so sure it's that or it's just that other than Keller and Skeens, with Jones being on the IL and still not back yet, that it's not just that beyond those three guys, they really don't have anybody. And I don't care what they say about what's-his-face. uh… louise uh… what what what do you have the other guy i don't care about that yeah i mean it's it's you know and and the other thing that that people talk about is you've got chapman in bednar look they're having which happens not actually not having a bad year now he he came back

Marc: Yeah, Chapman's been good. Bednar's been awful.

Steve: Yeah, he's been terrible. Yeah, I don't know what's going on with your mics.

Marc: You're having a lot of trouble. Actually, there's like a ringing too. Is there really? It's buzzing. I'm hearing a buzz.

Chris: Well, the buzzing is everywhere. I think that's just interference. That's just in your head. No, I think you have to talk into like this part of the mic. There you go. What part? This part of the mic?

Marc: There you go. Well, like now I can barely even like…

Steve: You know, breathe. Nobody wants to see your mouth.

Chris: I always thought. Yeah. So, you know, the question that I have now is. How long are we going to put up with this? I mean, this is ridiculous.

Steve: This is just part of the process.

Chris: To me, those moves were ridiculous to begin with. I don't, you know, everybody was all going crazy. And I get it. We talk about this all the time. The media in this town, they have to, they have to stay on the good side of the franchises in order to have access to the locker room. I hear them criticize here and there. But they will never cross the line. And look, we don't have access to the locker room. We're not insiders. But what I think is incredible is that we can look at this and see it for what it is, which is why you should tune in and watch, because our opinions are unfettered. And, and, and we, and they're not commercialized.

Steve: Yes. But one thing I just, we can actually talk to you for like an hour and commercialized and you will, that's, that's the word of the day, by the way.

Chris: No, it's not. There's three words of the day. Okay. We're going to do those right now. Um, excellent. Yeah. Uh, I want to know, Steve is, is equivalent word.

Steve: Yes, it absolutely is a word. Equivalent. Yes. It's equivalent. Yeah, equivalent.

Chris: No, no. You're saying equivalent. All right. Well, look it up. Okay. You go ahead and look it up right now while I go through these other ridiculous words. I already know it's a word. Equivalent. Here are Steve's made up yinzer words of the day. Equivalent. Equivalent. Rejuvenize. Rejuvenize.

Steve: And uncommercialized. Uncommercialized. That's my favorite.

Marc: It's rejuvenate.

Steve: Yeah.

Chris: No, rejuvenized. Rejuvenized.

Steve: Who thinks that… You can rejuvenate something, but you can only be rejuvenized.

Chris: Look, we're going to get… The king here is going to… He can look up whatever he wants.

Steve: It doesn't matter. Everybody knows what I'm saying when I say those words. They do.

Marc: Rejuvenize is a word.

Steve: Oh, wow. However… You will get to my plane someday, just not soon.

Marc: However, can you spell it?

Chris: I don't need to spell it. I say it. I'm going to try it because I wrote it down. Okay. R-E-J-U-V-I-N-I-Z-E.

Marc: No, it's R-E-J-U-V-E-N-I-S-E.

Steve: Oh my God. There you go. See? Okay. Why would you need this spelling?

Marc: Equivalate. Equivalate.

Chris: Yeah. Equivalate. I don't think equivalate is a word.

Steve: Equivalate. What are you going to do? Take my scrabble pieces off the board now? Yeah.

Marc: Yeah. It is actually. Oh my God. But to equate, to consider or make equal or equivalent.

Chris: Yeah, you're welcome. You learned two new words today. This is shocking.

Steve: Now, uncommercialized, I don't believe, is a word, but it's my favorite one.

Chris: Okay, because it's not a word.

Steve: Well, that one, I just like, I like the sound of it. We learn something new every day. Because this world is so commercialized, it should become more uncommercialized.

Marc: It's a word. Uncommercialized. Not having profit as a primary aim.

Chris: There you go.

Steve: See, and it's the perfect use of the word. So I'll just take my apologies later.

Chris: Steve is actually smarter than we thought he is.

Marc: I just learned now that you can just basically come up with some crap off of any kind of word and it's a word.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah, what's going on? I mean, that's that's the Pittsburgh way. People say it. I mean, Tomlin can make up these euphemisms that everybody's like, what the hell does that mean? Yeah, well, everybody knows what it means, but they're like, why do you have to say it like that? Really? I'm the Mike Tomlin of the show.

Chris: What what side are you looking at? The Webster's Dictionary site or OK. All right. So it's official. OK, so. All right. I was wrong.

Steve: And now we just made everybody feel like they're sitting through an SAT prep.

Chris: Yeah. CD. I feel like I'm sitting in an SAT prep podcast. You're not. You're not. Okay. So back to the pirate.

Marc: Yeah. What on earth has happened to Bednar this year?

Chris: I think he was due for a day. I think he was injured to start the year, but I don't think he's ever fully recovered from that injury. And I think you're right. Pitching in this league right now because of the way hitters prepare is much more difficult than it was in prior years. I mean, you know, years past and his velocity is not what it was in his movements, not what He's having a bad year.

Steve: You know, what else I think is going against him. Auralis Chapman. He throws the ball so hard.

Chris: Yeah, that was amazing. 104.7 miles an hour.

Steve: And he's setting up Bednar for failure. Yeah. Because when he comes in, the ball looks like a big freaking beach ball.

Marc: Yeah. It's like playing Nerf ball.

Steve: Yeah. Why wouldn't they? I think that's part of the problem.

Chris: Why wouldn't they go to Bednar? Why wouldn't they switch him? Go to Bednar and then to Chapman. Well, because they're the pirates. Yeah, that's the easy answer. What I'm saying is, would you do that?

Steve: Of course I would, because it makes more sense to throw the guy who throws it the hardest the last.

Chris: Yes, there you go. There's no words to make up for that one. Yeah, I understand. How about you, Schwaber? Would you do that? Would you go Bednar, then Chapman?

Marc: Yeah.

Steve: Definitely and the other thing too is I think that the starting pitching had been good for so long You just thought it was gonna continue and that was eventually gonna fall off, right? Well, yeah, I mean somebody like falter, you know Then Jones hasn't pitched in a while. Yeah, so really they're only left with skeins.

Marc: Okay, so well my my Grants will be any prediction does deal with one Bailey falter, okay

Steve: Oh, well, let's go.

Chris: Let's do it. Get the lamp out. Why don't we do that? You got to give me a second to catch up here because I wasn't really ready for the Grand Schwabini predicts, but here is the Grand Schwabini predicts.

Marc: Here is the lamp, and the lamp helps me to see the future. And the future regarding one Bailey Falter. We all know he's now faltering.

Chris: Yes, he is.

Marc: He is faltering. I believe the Grants well being, he said at the beginning of the year that ERA is going to be in the high fours or fives by the end of the year. Don't you worry. And he's finally above four. He's like a 4.07 now or something like that. So the question is, will Bailey falter? go higher than a 5.00 ERA this season.

Steve: Wow. And he's only at four right now?

Marc: He's only at 4.07. I don't think I'm going to like this.

Steve: What's the answer?

Marc: Bailey Falter will continue to falter. Oh, that's bad news. He will end up with a 5.13 ERA. Ouch.

Steve: You must think that they're going to pull the plug on skeins real soon.

Marc: But like I said, like I said, he was he was going to be good for a half a year.

Chris: You were absolutely right. Yeah. You did say that at the very beginning, for sure. Bailey Falter will finish with an ERA above five, more specifically, 5.13.

Marc: I give it directly from the sources above.

Chris: It just comes right through the lamp. Thank you for that. Okay, you're watching the Sports Porch Black and Gold on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, X, and Twitter, and we drop the podcast right after the show anywhere you get your podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Uh, you can follow the YouTube channel at the sports porch podcast. And of course we come to you every week next. Um, let's talk about Steelers, the Steelers Steelers preseason takes now. Oh my gosh. So many, I was working full page for, I was working during the preseason game. So I was drinking. I was good for you. I was unable to watch. I caught a couple of the highlights, you know, the ESPN clips, of course, I read as much as I could and listened to, you know, local media. Fuamatu and his challenges. Calvin Austin making a couple good catches. You know, Justin Fields fumbling a couple snaps. But other than that, didn't look horrible. So I want I want you guys to talk about your take on the game, because I know you guys watched it. And then I want you to answer this question. Does it really mean anything right now?

Steve: I would prefer Mark to go first on this because he was the one who actually watched the most.

Chris: Well, and we do have a question here that I want you to work into your thoughts from Mike Lawrence on Facebook. What's your opinion on Steelers quarterback Allen? This is a classic Yinzer Steelers question. This is what we do every year. But yeah, but but I appreciate the question, Mike, because somebody was going to bring it up and you did. So you guys just go to town on this.

Marc: All right. So let's start out. Justin Fields. Justin Fields. sometimes known as the turnover machine, did not disappoint. Nope.

Steve: He was what we thought he was.

Marc: He fumbled two snaps. Now look, I, you know, I'm not a hundred percent sure if it's the fault of the center or it's Justin Fields' fault. All I know is that you pretty much have been snapping the ball in training camp for two weeks and probably none of those snaps hit the ground. Right. So, You know, that wasn't good. I did think it was interesting how, because of that, they got Frazier into the game right away. The new center, the rookie.

Steve: Yep, Frazier got in sooner than you thought he would.

Marc: Right. And then there was a play where Fields was kind of like, you know, looking to make a play. It took a pretty big sack.

Steve: Yeah, they were in field goal range and he got them out. Lost a lot of yards. He did make a nice throw or two. Yeah, he made a nice sidearm pass.

Marc: Yeah, but you know overall I'm gonna say a Disappointing debut.

Steve: Yeah, I would I agree because that was also on my list of things to talk about that Justin Fields If if I'm Russell Wilson, I'm not worried about Justin Fields taking over for me with that kind of Thing that he did on the field on Friday night. It just wasn't There was nothing there that said, wow, this guy got it going on. He can, he can really do it. And those fumbles are ridiculous. And I, I don't know whether the blame fields or, uh, Nate Herbig, but I can tell you that between the two of them and the coaching staff, that's just embarrassing. It's just absolutely embarrassing to let that happen. Now, I, I, I did hear, uh, that when he was in Chicago, he also had problems taking snaps.

Chris: Yeah, he had a lot of fumbles.

Steve: And, you know, people who have analyzed those snaps said it hit him right in the hand. So that's on the quarterback when that happens. That being said, I don't want Nate Herbig as my starting center anyway. So anything that happens to get him out of there and get Frazier in there, I'm 100% behind. So I'm willing to throw Nate Herbig under the bus on this just so he gets the hell out of there and to the right guard positions. And can move Daniels to hell out of there. So I think that's all good. What else you have mark?

Marc: Okay, so guys that I thought looked good Nick her big had a really excellent burst on his You know, I don't know if he probably got credit for Harry caused a shroud throw away, but he was in there like a bolt of lightning. That's good to see. Um, I think, you know, he's going to be, uh, you know, look, he's not a star or anything, but he's a guy who will have an impact. He'll have a positive impact on the defense. He'll get some sacks.

Steve: Who was that, Roman Wilson? No, no, Nick Herbick. Nick Herbick.

Marc: Oh, Nick Herbick, yeah. Nick Herbick. So I liked what I saw from him. I actually thought Pickens played pretty well. I will tell you, though, it's kind of funny. It's like everybody has such a negative viewpoint on Pickens. Well, it's because of his attitude, because of his attitude. I mean, I can't tell you how many people I heard say like, boy, you ever see a guy who just like looks like he doesn't want to be out there very much, but yet doing really well.

Steve: Here's my take on on Nick Herbig, the rookie. I know he had some some, you know, some some stops for a loss to me. He looks great when he can take he can take over the game like he can he can play forward downhill. Yeah. When when when he's like behind the play and the plays coming to him, he's terrible. He can't even tackle anybody So I think that's the thing that he's gonna have to figure out how to use his speed to get in front of players as opposed to you know running backwards and and then getting lost in the play because He when he gets lost in the play, he looks terrible and he can't tackle at all He was in on that that that run of that rush Right up the middle and he tried to make the tackle and it was like he just tried to two-hand touch him down Yeah, I so I think that's something that he needs to work on.

Marc: Yeah, I think right now he's more like a situational blitzer.

Steve: I Think you're right. I think but he's gonna be playing that inside linebacker position so he's got to figure out a way to use his speed to his advantage to get up into the hole as Opposed to waiting for the block to come to him because he'll get lost in the play if that happens Yeah, the one thing I really was excited about because remember back when we did our post draft.

Marc: I I said that the guy who's going to make an impact that we might not see it this year, but we might see it eventually, is that Mason McCormick. And I loved hearing the announcer say that the coaching staff loves this guy. And they put him in relatively early in the game. So i'm telling you watch out on the offensive line. Mason mccormick.

Steve: That's good I mean, they're gonna need more offensive linemen and that's why I don't Here's the problem that I have. They still they still are moving around Broderick jones. They need to put him in the spot And I get it fought an who got injured so that's gonna push back his starting time frame Which means Dan Moore jr. Is probably gonna start the first couple games, which it just drives me nuts But I'm happy that they have him in the sense that they when you go to the second level It's not gonna be that bad, right? So that's the one thing about the Steelers offensive line this year that that gives me some encouragement that They're actually deep enough that if they get some injuries They can sustain that when before when they got an injury, you're like I was over who's coming in. Yeah, what you know? Yeah, and they did give up some guys like chooks is still a starter in the league So, I mean, I think they can do it. Here's here's my my final take with the Steelers where have some of these guys that have been injured been like who even knows what Russell Wilson's gonna do and We're basically through training camp already. We're going to have our second preseason game this weekend. We have no idea how good Russell Wilson is. And why? Because he pushed a freaking blocking sled and he can't get back on the field. That's troublesome to me. I'm really worried about that situation more than anything. The other thing that drives me crazy a little bit, Roman Wilson's not been on the field. He's not going to play this year. He's going to be like Calvin Austin in the third. He's going to start in his third season. And he'll be the third wide receiver. He's garbage.

Chris: You don't think he's going to start this year? Or have they announced he's not going to start?

Marc: He might. We don't know how hard he is.

Steve: But, you know, he hasn't played in the Steelers won't even start Frazier, who clearly is a great talent. Do you think they're going to start Roman Wilson? They're saying that Van Jefferson is showing enough promise. He'll be the number two. I promise you that I did have a nice and Calvin Austin, the third, because he's on the field will probably get that.

Chris: That's the problem I have with the Steelers right now is they're receiving core. I don't, I don't think they made any improvements.

Marc: I didn't like the pick of Roman Wilson and maybe he'll prove me wrong and be a good player, but I didn't like the pick. I just don't like picking the small guys.

Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Well, in speaking of small guys, what about Beanie Bishop being the starting nickel back because cam Sutton's, you know, out, right. I mean, OK, he's got great energy. You know, people like him because, you know, he he makes splash plays. But the dude's five nine. You got to go with the big guy. You're not Daryl Green. You got to go with Graylin Arnold. You know, they picked him up from Houston. Just put him in there. Don't be don't be fancy about this. Well, everybody likes him and he's a flash player and he's got great personality. That put the guy in there. That's the big guy. Who's just gonna play the nickel He's gonna be in the way. So so that you don't get that slot pass in right could make the tackles just Enough with this this I know better than you know shit They seem to be very fascinated with smaller players.

Chris: Don't they right?

Steve: I don't understand that. And then the last guy who's not been on the field finally got on at practice today, Corderell Patterson. I think he's got to get out there. And honestly, we still don't know what this offense is going to be.

Marc: Well, I will tell you this, though. The one other thing I took away from the game, I thought the running game looked good. I thought that Najee and Jalen… Najee looked great. Ran the ball very well.

Steve: Yep.

Marc: I love that running back by committee. And look, maybe this is too soon. But I also felt like the offensive scheme and philosophy with Arthur Smith looked much more like an NFL offense.

Steve: I agree. That's what everybody's been saying. Minus the snap garbage. It looked like an offense that you can do different things with, gives you different looks, is harder to play against.

Marc: Right. It wasn't run in like ridiculous jet sweeps every third.

Steve: But I agree with you, Chris. I'm still worried about that wide receiver position because I think it's bad unless they can unless they can open up wide receivers by running the ball, meaning, you know, they got to pack it in a little bit. Maybe you can send pickings long and maybe you can get a 30 yard pass to kind of loosen things up. They're going to be in trouble, I think.

Chris: Van Jefferson last year had something like 12 catches for 200 yards.

Steve: Yeah, but he had 50 catches the year before.

Chris: I know that. I get that. But what I'm saying is that he is not an answer. He hasn't played in this offense. Him and Wilson have never played together. And you're asking him to step in and be a number two. There's nobody on the steel. And I know everybody loves George Pickens talents. Um, CD says good call Schwab, like the adult play calling. Absolutely. We, we, everybody noticed that. I mean, what's shit. If, if we, if the three of us got together and called the place, it would look better than Canada's offense. So, but, but yes, he's a real OC. Um, nobody that faces the Steelers right now, the way they're receiving core is set up is afraid of anything. I don't think honestly I and now I think they're afraid of Pickens the guy let him catch the hell out of the ball He can catch it, but he's not a threat to score a touchdown every time he he catches the ball I'm just no he's not fast look Calvin I'm not third is probably more of that guy that you're talking any small. I'm not sold look I'm not sold on George Pickens yet. I'm just I'm Not because he doesn't have the numbers.

Steve: He's a mid-range No. 1 wide receiver. Maybe. He's probably No. 23 on the list of No. 1 wide receivers.

Chris: Just like, and I'm going to use a Pirates reference here, just like in the beginning of the year when I started by saying that O'Neal Cruz is a bust. Then I retracted that by saying he didn't play any baseball really for a year. Now we get this far in the season. 30% of his at bats are strikeouts. He's batting 257. He's got, I don't know, 18 home runs. He's having a good year. Respectable, but he's, but he plays a horrible shortstop and they have no idea what to do with him. We're not going back to the pirates here, but what I'm saying is no, we're not. What we tend to do in Pittsburgh right now is pick a guy and hype him as the second coming of hockey Jesus. You know, I don't think I don't think George Pickens is that guy.

Steve: I just don't. I don't think anybody's hyping anybody on this offense until Russell Wilson gets out there and proves that he can throw the ball. Yeah. Once he proves he can throw the ball and then if George Pickens catches, you know, one-handed balls in the first four games, Pickens has two 100-yard games, then you're going to see people knight him as the next Lin Swan.

Chris: Chata says, Chata Chata on, that's what I'm going to call him because it's easier. Chata Chata on Instagram says, who's the defensive guy from NC State? Peyton Wilson. Guy looks like a potentially great find. He had a good game, right? Yeah. He's really fast. Yeah. Yeah, and that's what they need.

Marc: He has injury problems. That's why he was available in the fourth round. Yeah, yeah, so… But could be a find.

Chris: Yeah, so first preseason game, you know, the takeaways there are there's work to do. You know, Wilson's going to start this next game. And, you know, there's going to be rust. What can I say? I am very concerned about the Steelers season. I was listening to a beat writer for another team. I want to say it was the Houston Texans, who was, this is before the Houston game, who basically, the perspective was interesting because our perspective here in Pittsburgh is that the Steelers are not the worst team in the AFC North.

Steve: No, they're not. They might be the best.

Chris: But it was his perspective was they're the worst. It's another perspective.

Steve: The guy's a moron.

Marc: There, I said it. Here's actually an interesting question for you.

Steve: No, it sort of does. What's that guy's name? I'm looking his ass up. I don't remember. Houston guy. Yeah. I'm looking him up.

Chris: Yeah. It sort of does feel like. Why don't you try to equivalent him with somebody?

Steve: It's a moron. That's what I'll do. Yeah.

Marc: It's sort of does feel like the Brandon. I think is dead.

Chris: I hope so.

Marc: You know, they they basically said that, you know, they're they've reopened negotiations with him. But this this I found interesting. And I want to pose a Steelers question to it. At least what I was hearing, my sources were telling me that the number one reason why what was sort of holding up this deal was the 49ers wanted to want a player back in the deal that can help them win this. Right, right. So then what was really interesting was one of the guys, you know, one of the pretty well known guys like Shefty or somebody like that reported the Browns deal. Um, and the Browns deal. Yeah. Uh, Amari Cooper did Amari Cooper, which is insane, but, and they were going to do that. They were going to do it. They were going to do that, but he didn't want to go there. Yeah. So, but the question then becomes, would you include Pickens?

Chris: No. Brandon, I, I would. Okay. So there's two.

Marc: So in a sense, what, what, what I think you're getting is you're getting a, player that's got, at least at this age, a better work ethic, has put up better numbers, was also a first-round pick. I guess I would say the ceiling is higher with pickings. Maybe. Maybe, maybe not. Yeah. Right. But, um, that's kind of interesting because, and I think the other part of it was, is that it was the Browns that were getting picks. Yeah. Because they were giving up like, you know, a Pro Bowl wide receiver. Yeah. Right. So it's like, you know, would you give pick-ins for IUK and picks? Yeah. I would, I would maybe think about that.

Chris: Well, here's the problem that the Steelers have, and they've had this problem for years. IU torched them in the first game of last season, absolutely torched them. And so Tomlin got stars in his eyes for this kid. And then this kid comes out and there's a bunch of memes out there. He looks like Mike Tomlin. And then it comes out that he would love to play for Mike Tomlin. And now they want to go after him. And San Francisco knows that the Steelers are desperate for a wide receiver. So they're going to hold out. And he only wants to play for them. The right trade for them would have been sending him to Cleveland and picking up Amari Cooper. Yeah. You know, that would be the right move for them. Of course not. Of course not. So that's where we are. Why?

Steve: Because he knows Cleveland sucks and they're not going to win the damn division.

Chris: So, so last thing on the Steelers and then we'll move on to our other subjects tonight because we got another show to do that nine that's pretty special. So there was some, there was some, uh, chatter today about the fact that Jerry Jones came out and said, you know, basically I'm, I'm paraphrasing. He, he said what Jerry Jones basically loves to say, Hey, CD lamb, we love you, but we don't really need you. Okay. Um, yeah, he put them on IR now, of course. Now, of course, Of course, the media around here is picking that up and saying, why in the hell aren't the Steelers going after C.D. Lamb and trying to pry him away from the Cowboys? Because he would be worth $35 million a year.

Steve: I was surprised to hear they were thinking about giving IU $28 million a year. I was shot.

Chris: I don't think he's worth that. I mean, he just hasn't, he's, he's worth it.

Steve: I mean, if you look at the market, that's where he belongs.

Chris: I understand the market.

Steve: I'm just saying, I, I just think he's, he's where he needs to be, to be the receiver that he is, which is 90 to 105 catches and you know, 1200 to 1500 yards, excellent on the Steelers.

Chris: If that's what they could get. I would never get that.

Steve: on the Steelers, the Steelers don't throw the ball enough, their offense isn't crisp enough to be able to do that. Well, we don't know that yet, we don't know that yet. I know that for a fact. This guy knows everything before it happens.

Chris: There will be no, okay, here. The Grand Schwabini's sitting to my right, you're not the Grand Schwabini.

Steve: The prediction is, I want the Grand Schwabini to think about this for the next show. Will there be a Pittsburgh Steeler who catches over 100 balls and between 1300 and 1500 yards a game? No answer. That's what I want you to think about.

Chris: Well, I can give an answer because it's not my prediction, but I can tell you right now with this current receiving core, absolutely not. No way. Not going to happen. Even if Brandon Iuke was on this, if C.D. Lamb was on this team. Absolutely.

Steve: No, it wouldn't. You don't understand the offenses. Offensives are about schemes. They run so many rushing plays. There wouldn't be enough balls for this guy to guy to catch to get to that level.

Chris: We can agree to disagree. We got some food. We get we can agree. One more thing. One more thing.

Steve: I got to ask you guys. All right. What do you think about the new kickoff? Did you see what happened with Kansas City game?

Marc: No, I didn't. Was there safety?

Steve: Yeah. So Kansas City, uh, was kicked the ball and it landed in the end zone and then it bounced out of the end zone and landed on the two yard line. The Kansas City, uh, the Kansas City guy was supposed to return. It went back to the end zone, grabbed the ball from the two yard line and kneeled in the end zone. And that's now, a safety because He brought it back. Yeah, he brought it back. But last year when the ball hit in the end zone, it was automatically dead Yeah, now when the ball hits in the end zone, it's still a live ball. Yeah which means if you don't go get it and catch it. You like, if you catch it and you stay in the end zone, then you get it out at the whatever 25 or 30. Yeah. But if you let it bounce and just let it bounce around back there and the other team gets the ball, it's a touchdown. It's a touchdown. Yeah. I think so. And nobody really knew that. So I was surprised that like the, you think of the Kansas city chiefs, Like, you know, Andy Reed, smart guy knows everything about football. No clue. Right. No clue.

Chris: Well, I can tell you that I don't like it at all just because I'm a classic, you know, uh, kickoff guy. I like the kickoffs.

Steve: It doesn't bother me.

Chris: Well, the whole offsides thing, the whole or onsides kickoff thing, you got to let them know you're going to kick an onsides kick. Why even do it then?

Marc: Well, the, well, yeah. Well, the idea behind this is to get more kickoff returns that basically the play was like, I think what they said was in the in the Super Bowl, like the last two years or something.

Steve: There's not been a single return.

Marc: Not a single kickoff return.

Chris: Right. OK. Well, they don't want to. Yeah, I get it. Donald Sharpe joins us on Facebook. He says, where's the new offense? Donald, be patient. You know, pump the brakes. The new offense is there. You got to remember, these guys were indoctrinated into a Canada offense. And we also have new players coming in with a new O.C. Guaranteed this I will guarantee that will look completely different. It's not about the way you know why didn't they put up a million yards in the first preseason game? It's about it's a new offense. It's going to look like a pro offense. Now they have to execute. Now they have no excuses if they don't.

Steve: The one thing I'll say the Donald is remember last year's preseason when we had the best offense in all of preseason and we were going to the Super Bowl and our quarterback that was so dumb didn't even make it.

Chris: That's right. Okay.

Marc: You're watching the sports board, by the way, Eagles first preseason game. Kenny pick it under through a wide open John Ross by about five yards.

Chris: Yep.

Marc: Yep.

Steve: He's looking good under through.

Chris: That's what happens when you have small hands. He's looking good in Kelly green. Okay. This is the sports sports black and cold podcast. You can watch us live every Monday night at seven 30 all over the world on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and X as well as Instagram. And we're going to drop the podcast right after the show on the I heart radio app, apple podcast, Spotify, or anywhere you get your frigging podcast. Now, this is really the only reason that Schwaber, the Grand Schwabini, shows up to these things. This is something that we like to call the Trader Joe's product of the week.

Steve: Taste the biscuit. Taste the goodness of the biscuit. Taste the honey sauce. I don't like the way it tastes with my chicken wings.

Chris: All right, Trader Joe's product of the week. Everybody knows, if you watch us all the time, that I work at Trader Joe's, wonderful place to work, love the food, great grocery store. If you have one near you, go see it. They're not paying us for this, but I did get permission to do this. And every week we have a Trader Joe's product that I bring home and the guys sample it and they give their honest opinion. This week, the product of the week is The Trader Joe's mushroom and black truffle flatbread. Have you had that, guys? Have you had it?

Marc: I may have had it. I have not. I promise you I have not had it. I actually have had it.

Steve: This will be a first tasting for me.

Marc: This is something that I bought before.

Chris: All right. Well, then you can, there you go. Relive the good times. Yep. You want a plate here? Here's an extra plate for you. I'm just going to take this end piece right here. I have not had this. It's been in my freezer for a little while. Well, thank you, Mark.

Marc: I think it's good.

Chris: Lauren cooked it earlier, so it's cooled off a little bit.

Steve: There you go. Don't be a pig. I won't. Use a napkin.

Chris: All right. Apparently, we're celebrating a 2022 grad with the plates.

Steve: Okay.

Chris: Yeah.

Marc: Really good.

Steve: Good thing plates don't get old. I got you here.

Marc: I'm a shroom guy.

Chris: Are you a truffle guy? Yeah. I love truffles. This is seriously good. That's real good. Yeah.

Steve: It's got some.

Steve: Mm hmm.

Marc: It's something that, like, for example, if you need to throw something in for dinner, you can throw it in there, you can probably eat the whole thing. Oh, yeah, I can definitely not eat anything else. Yeah, it's all right.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And Amy says we had a lot of pizza the last few days. Yeah, I bet you did. I haven't had pizza for a while.

Steve: Actually, this is actually my third day in a row with pizza. Well, well, I mean, I consider flatbread pizza.

Chris: I don't know. I don't know if we can actually call this pizza, but it's flatbread pizza.

Steve: Yeah. I consider flatbread pizza. Okay. Well, I mean, it's good. Give it a thumbs up. It's a thumbs up, but it's not one of my favorites. Oh, okay. All right.

Marc: Well, thumbs up for me.

Chris: Thumbs up for the Trader Joe's product of the week while I have it in my mouth. That was a horrible thing to say. But three thumbs up for the mushroom and black truffle, black truffle, black bread from Trader Joe's. Why don't I just, why don't I just bring the song back and take it out?

Steve: Bring it out.

Steve: Taste the biscuit. Taste the goodness of the biscuit. There it is, baby. Trader Joe's product of the week, or what we like to call

Chris: Trader Joe's snack time.

Steve: OK, we can get in any Olympic stuff.

Chris: Yeah, I have. I have something. I know I have something on the Olympics. What do we want to do? Do we want to stump the ends or do we want my take on on on the Olympics? Well, you guys decide.

Steve: I think we got to go to the Olympics. We can skip the Yinser stuff this week. Okay.

Chris: All right. Well then, then, then I'm going to put this, um, in the realm of our, what we, what are we watching? Uh, segment watch the Olympics. Yeah. Yeah. But, but what are we watching? I just want to put this out here. I want you to watch this. I'm sure everybody's seen it by now. I know what it is. Yeah. And I want, I want to ask the question, why,

Marc: It's really, there's a guy on TikTok who has a screen of her doing it and then he's doing it like in his living room at the same time. And it just says, it just says, 2028 LA, here I come.

Chris: Right, right. I mean, honestly, seriously, what are we watching? I mean, now she did, her opponent was the U.S.

Steve: By the way, that was an Australian, and her moniker is Ray Gunn.

Chris: Yeah, whatever. I'm just saying. Just so you know, let's get it right. First of all, let's give her props. That was horrible. For those of you listening to the podcast, if you don't know, breakdancing or breaking is now an Olympic sport. And we just watched a video from TikTok of like, it looked like one of my kids throwing a fit.

Marc: It should not be an Olympic sport. First of all, It's dancing. It's not it's not a sport. You know what I mean? You know, you want to put it in a dance competition. Fine. It's not a sport like you can't. How can you like judge that like level of difficulty, like like gymnastics or something? I mean, like it's stupid.

Steve: Well, I mean, there was there was a problem with the level of difficulty in the gymnastics. If you if you saw Jordan Childs got the bronze and then suddenly they took it away from her and they're saying, no, she deserves it because the point one difficulty difference gave her point one more points and put her in the third place. But it's ridiculous. I mean, to some level, the dancing period is ridiculous, even with gymnastics. But you can see the level of effort they put in gymnastics with the tumbling and what it takes to do that.

Chris: Gymnastics is a sport. It is. Amy actually nails this. And she says the story is she is a teacher who begged the Australian Olympic board to let her go without seeing her dance. Look, if you're going to put a sport or an event or whatever the hell it is in the Olympics, which is arguably where the best athletes in the entire world in every country go to compete. and you're the olympic board how in the hell russia right how in the hell at times how in the hell can you let somebody be representative on your olympic team who you've never seen perform right right how does that make it a sport

Steve: Well, because they didn't have anybody who could breakdance in Australia.

Chris: You're telling me that country has, I don't know, 20 million people in it. You're telling me nobody breakdances better than her?

Steve: I don't think the Australian Olympic board wanted to find out. Think about how many worse people they would have had to sit through.

Chris: Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean, it's it's it's it's just to me, to me, it highlights. the fact that I think, and there's gonna be a lot of differing opinions on this, and I might take some flack for it, but I think the Olympics are no longer worth watching. That's me. I think they've totally destroyed the Olympics and made it way too, I'm gonna use the term politically correct without getting into the politics and the opening ceremony and all that crap. That doesn't matter. What I'm saying is, they're starting to just throw things into this competition.

Marc: What they're doing is they're trying to get younger people interested.

Steve: That's well, and I think they're also highlighting obscure sports that somebody wouldn't want to watch year-round and to watch every four years is okay Like swimming and diving people really enjoy that stuff And honestly, I love the track race, but I'm not gonna watch it every year, dude and and and the last thing I think is important is is about just national identity and And I think, unfortunately for the United States, we didn't really show a very good face when it came to that this year. Right. I think for the most part, the men's basketball did a pretty good job of like, you know, not highlighting, you know, the superstars and people kind of took a step back. And I think that that was good. But, dude, how can how can you resist that guy from Turkey shooting? Like, did you see that? Yeah, I saw that. Like, dude, everybody else had like these sharpshooter glasses on. He just went out there with the gun and said, I'm putting my hand in my pocket and bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Chris: I get the silver. I'd like to have him as my bodyguard. Yeah.

Steve: I mean, I just think here's here's what I do. I do take offense to the opening and closing ceremonies were the absolute worst in the history of the Olympics. They were so terrible, and take what you want from the Last Supper meme or whatever, the Greek goddess ceremony, whatever that was. It was still terrible, even if it wasn't supposed to be a spoof of some Christian moniker. And moniker is a real word. I know Monica's word. And and the ending, I turned it on last night because, you know, I got home late from from driving 13 hours straight. I'm like, I just want to see what the final ceremony looks like.

Chris: His wife made him watch.

Steve: No, no. I put it on. Well, I wanted to watch something with Susan. I know she would like that. So alien. So I'm like watching this gold figure come down and I'm like, okay, this is going to get better. And like, it starts walking around then all these white suited people with like the blank faces come out and, and they're like lifting up circles. And I'm like, what the hell is going on?

Marc: It's overly trying to be artistic.

Steve: Yeah. And on top of that, it took them 30 minutes to do this. And I'm like, do you really want to watch any more of this? And even Susan said, you can shut it off. Yeah. And it was, it was just horrible.

Marc: And I'll tell you what too, that, that, uh, that whole, uh, last supper thing as well. Like, like why would you do that when you just know it's going to insult

Chris: So many people because you're allowed, because look, you're allowed, you're allowed to insult Christians. Now you're allowed to do that, but I mean, that's perfectly okay, but it's not okay to insult anybody else. You're allowed to assault, insult Christian.

Steve: You are.

Chris: And I am not a practicing Christian. Well, I am.

Steve: I know you are. And here's the thing. Were you insulted? I was not after I heard, after I listened to what they said they were trying to do, right? Because when I saw the blue dude, in the freaking thing on the table. I'm like, what is that? What is that guy doing? Like that was never part of like, you know, the last supper was a blue dude on the table.

Chris: Right. Right. Yeah.

Steve: And then they said, I didn't read the Bible, but yeah, no, that never happened. I don't think they were trying to make him the Eucharist. Yeah. Okay. Can you use a Christian term?

Chris: Yes. I know that's a Christian term.

Steve: So, so I was not offended from that reason because I think Jesus, can take care of things like that. Okay. It's not going to, it's not going to hurt the moniker of Jesus, honestly.

Marc: You just, you just shouldn't insult anybody.

Steve: Yeah. And I don't know. And the explanation was that it wasn't meant to do that. It was meant to be a Greek feast. And I'm like, okay, I think that there was a little bit more than that going on. And I think you're right. I think if, if, if, if, if everybody took it as insulting, they didn't care.

Chris: They just didn't care. You're telling me that when they're setting this up in practice and there wasn't somebody back there going, I don't think that's a good idea. I'm not sure this is going to go over well.

Steve: They had no Christians saying, that looks a little bit like the Last Supper. You might want to just move around a little bit.

Chris: A little bit like the Last Supper? They planned it to look like the Last Supper. Yeah, there's no doubt. Okay. Shot a chat on Instagram says, is it true that the river there was so polluted that the triathletes were vomiting when they got out from swimming? That is true. This is why my friends and I never swam in the Allegheny river. You never swam in the river. I swam in that river a lot. I mean, What? Allegheny. Yeah. Yeah, man.

Steve: I used to go jet skiing on that river.

Chris: Hell yeah. With John, John, uh, uh, Clary. Yeah. John Clary. I do. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: But yeah, that, that. Literally you got on a boat and you were like, okay, I think it's a good idea to jump in the river.

Chris: No, no. I got on a jet ski and invariably on a jet ski when you've had about 16 beers, you end up in the river, you know? So I'm lucky to be alive. on many occasions. Mike Lawrence says drop the breaking and rock wall climbing. The rest of the competitions were pretty great. CD says we need to start a porch session on obscure sports. We'll bring that back. We've done that before. Ocho the okay. Last last thing of the night. Actually two last things real quick. We have one what what we're watching. That's mine. We're going to get to that real quick right here. What, what are we watching for real? Um, and that is Schwab's dying here. We got a Philly show. We got to do that. Oh, it's going to be epic. Um, you know what? I'll save that. What we're watching for next week. There you go. Okay. Uh, smart. And so let's move on to Stump the Yenzer. It's a football-related question. I'm pretty sure you're going to get the answer, but I'm not 100% sure. Football-related question. So what is the Stump the Yenzer?

Steve: Let's see if I can get it ahead of time. Stan Marino. Stump, no.

Marc: Stump, which part of Let's Skip It This Week did you not hear?

Chris: We planned this before you got here. You were late. So the, uh, stump, the Yenzer is we try to stump our resident Yenzer Hockey Jesus who goes back generations and generations. And he gives an answer. The Grant Schwabini tries to give an answer. If, if, if he's right and HJ is wrong, Grant Schwabini has the title of Yenzer for a week. So this, this week, what was the first Pitt football number to be retired?

Steve: Well, I mean, that's a really difficult one, but I think you got to go with Tony Dorsett, which would be number 33. That's what I would go with.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And you are correct. Absolutely. All right, Mark. Maybe next week. There it is.

Marc: We didn't wait a week for that.

Chris: Yeah. Well, I had to do something with football. Glad we could fit it in. I had to do something with football. All right, guys, this has been Sporting Black and Gold. The band is back together. We're looking forward to football season. I want to thank Hockey Jesus in front of me, LeBron Swabini for making it on my right. And I want to thank all of you for watching the Sports porch Black and Gold. If you're watching live on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, X and Instagram. Remember, we drop the podcast right after the show every single week, right after the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere you get your friggin podcasts that's it i am your technical director and i am out