Columns

Pittsburgh Sports Columns

Column: Five faceoff factors for Penguins’ camp

by • Columns • Tags:

FullSizeRender

The double-doors to the Penguins’ locker room open to reporters Thursday morning. — DEJAN KOVACEVIC

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

There’s no crying in hockey, either.

For all 32 forwards, 17 defensemen and six goaltenders reporting to the Penguins’ 48th training camp on this 18th of September, the only number that matters to this most starcrossed of franchises is 16, that, of course, being the playoff victory total of the Stanley Cup champion. And make no mistake. For all the Taylor Chorney, Reid McNeill, Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond types taking the ice for the opening session Friday, any roster with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin on it will come with nothing less than that expectation.

I loved the way newcomer Christian Ehrhoff put it Thursday, this after a year of fishing pucks out of his own net in Buffalo: “I was with the team that was 30th in the league, and it was no fun. Everybody knows what the Pittsburgh Penguins are, how they’re always contending for the Cup. I don’t expect that to change.”

Nor should he. Or anyone.

I could get into all kinds of reasons why, or I could just cut it off by saying the Rangers were the Eastern Conference rep in the final last spring. They were right there. The Kings were a good bit better. A handful of Western teams undoubtedly were a good bit better. But that New York team was right there. And, as I don’t need to remind anyone, the Penguins held New York’s spot before sadly, sloppily conceding it.

That’s how close they were.

MORE

Column: Never forget that No. 7 is No. 1

by • Columns • Tags:

Ben Roethlisberger is crushed by the Ravens' Courtney Upshaw Thursday in Baltimore. -- GETTY IMAGES

Ben Roethlisberger is crushed by the Ravens’ Courtney Upshaw on Thursday in Baltimore. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Marcus Gilbert allowed Elvis Dumervil to get around him. And to go right through him.

But on this day, the Steelers’ right tackle wasn’t allowing anything to slip by.

He stood in the locker room and faced wave after wave of cameras, microphones and reporters with pointed questions about his perfectly miserable performance Thursday in the 26-6 loss at Baltimore. The room was open to media access for a half-hour, and he was at his stall answering for 25 minutes of it.

“You’re out there for 60-some snaps, and you have those two plays … it’s frustrating. It is,” Gilbert was saying with the first of those waves. “You can’t take those back. But you can’t give them up, either. I know I’ve got to be better. And I will be.”

He’d better be.

Because it isn’t just those two plays. Gilbert allowed two sacks in the opener against the Browns, as well. That total of four ties him with the Redskins’ Tyler Polumbus for most in the NFL by a tackle — left or right — with only two other players, the Cowboys’ Doug Free and the Packers’ Derek Sherrod, having as many as three. Add the two QB hurries Gilbert’s given up, and you’re now easily quantifying the worst offensive lineman in the league.

MORE

Column: The pen is mightier than before

by • Columns • Tags:

Russell Martin connects on a two-run blast in the second inning Tuesday at PNC Park. -- GETTY IMAGES

Russell Martin connects on a two-run blast to right-center in the second inning Tuesday at PNC Park. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Tony Watson held the game in his left hand, essentially, and only he and Russell Martin knew what was coming next.

Except that they really didn’t.

“I called for a changeup. I know that much,” the catcher was telling me after the Pirates’ 4-0 blanking of the Red Sox on Tuesday night at PNC Park. “What happened to it after that …”

What happened to it after that was that Yoenis Cespedes, Boston’s light-tower-power with the 21 bombs, swung over it for strike three to end the eighth inning and, in all reality, bury any chance for a Red Sox rally. Two were aboard, two were out, and it was all or nothing.

Nothing won in a landslide.

MORE

Column: Crazy little thing called tackling

by • Columns • Tags:

Ike Taylor covers the Panthers' Kelvin Benjamin in a preseason game last month. -- GETTY IMAGES

Ike Taylor covers the Panthers’ Kelvin Benjamin in a preseason game last month at Heinz Field. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Well, ‘Hm-hah!’ as the late, great Myron Cope used to exclaim.

What did we witness at the Steelers’ Monday practice, their first since being obliterated on both sides of the ball in Baltimore, other than defensive players performing the rough equivalent of calculus majors learning to work an abacus?

“We tackled,” defensive lineman Cam Thomas was telling me, almost by way of confession, afterward at his stall. “That was pretty much it. We worked on our footwork, our leverage and …”

And tackling. Honest to Mean Joe, Jack and Dobre Shunka. They worked on tackling.

Not that this should either surprise or disappoint anyone. If anything, it’s an infinitely more commendable response to the rancid work Thursday against the Ravens — 16 missed tackles, just two tackles for losses, zero sacks, zero turnovers, 157 yards rushing against — than how Mike Tomlin thoroughly dismissed my question on that count after that game.

Remember that?

MORE

Column: When a magic moment becomes more

by • Columns • Tags:

Josh Harrison shouts toward the Pirates' dugout after his two-run double tied the score in the fifth inning. -- GETTY IMAGES

Josh Harrison shouts toward the Pirates’ dugout after his two-run double tied the score in the fifth inning. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

The instant the ball made impact with Matt Szczur’s bat and seared toward third base, with fellow Cubs already at first and second, the entirety of the Pirates’ infield experienced individual flashes. You know, the kind only baseball players can fully appreciate. These guys wait, they weigh the whole scene and most everything that can happen, they wait some more, and, just like that, they’re expected to be nothing less than perfect.

Well, this one played out in in perfect harmony, as it turned out.

Let’s start with Russell Martin’s view behind the plate, if only because it’s a wonderful foundation: “All I’m thinking, honestly, is let’s get out of this inning.”

OK, nothing too sophisticated there, but then, that’s by far the most pragmatic view and so very Martin. To that point in the top of the fourth, Chicago’s severely depleted lineup had stacked up a three-run lead and was set for more. And hey, there are losses that sting, there are losses that devastate, and then there are losses to an opponent with five starters batting .214 or lower. In a pennant race. With one of your best, Edinson Volquez, on the mound.

So yeah, pragmatic would have worked fine in the moment.

Only the moment would, instead, morph into magic.

MORE

Column: A new norm for baseball in Pittsburgh

by • Columns • Tags:

Chicago Cubs v Pittsburgh Pirates

Josh Harrison and Gaby Sanchez celebrate a third-inning run Friday night at PNC Park. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

It was 57 degrees pretty much all through the Pirates’ 7-3 cutdown of the Cubs on this crisp, cool Friday night in September, and all around PNC Park the patrons had broken out out their hoodies, sweatshirts and windbreakers.

All 35,638 of them. I had mine on, too.

In our little corner of the world, we don’t describe fall weather the way they do elsewhere. To us, this is the meteorological phenomenon known as “high school football weather.” No temp needed, thanks. This is how it feels when you raise a foam finger at WPIAL and City League stadiums from Aliquippa to Zelienople, where roughly a quarter-million fans at any given time are cheering their children, supporting the bands, buying up the 50/50s.

If you want a far prettier mental picture, here’s how Steve Blass described it after this game: “I’ve flown into Pittsburgh on a Friday night, and it’s amazing. It’s like a diamond field with all the lights sparkling everywhere. And to think, all those places are packed with people …”

Right. And to think, they were again. Except, of course, for the exactly 35,638 watching baseball.

MORE

Column: Lay this one on Steelers’ … offense?

by • Columns • Tags:

The Ravens' C.J. Mosley recovers a Heath Miller fumble in the fourth quarter. -- GETTY IMAGES

The Ravens’ C.J. Mosley recovers a Heath Miller fumble in the fourth quarter Thursday night. — GETTY

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

BALTIMORE — On one especially stomach-turning sequence in the Steelers’ sad, sad 26-6 loss to the Ravens on Thursday night — and hey, good luck plucking out just one from the menu offered by this mess — Troy Polamalu, Ike Taylor and Ryan Shazier all whiffed on exquisite chances to take down Steve Smith.

Check that. It wasn’t a sequence. It was a play.

It was all on the very same play that Polamalu was spun around like a rookie, then Taylor either grabbed onto air or was gasping for air, depending on the perspective, then Shazier managed to match both by actually being a rookie and being beaten like one. It wound up a 23-yard yard gain that would set the stage for a second-quarter Baltimore field goal and a 10-point lead that felt like about a billion.

And it all occurred, in case I neglected to mention it, on one play.

As easy as 1-2-3 following the first flick of a domino.

All night long, too.

MORE

Column: Roger Goodell thinks you’re stupid

by • Columns • Tags:

NFL And Players Resume Mediation

The Giants’ John Mara and the Steelers’ Art Rooney II leave a meeting together in Minneapolis in May 2011. — GETTY IMAGES

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Roger Goodell isn’t on the verge of being disgraced.

He’s already disgraced.

Let’s get that much straight right now, no matter how dulled it might be inside his deluded head.

He’s already lost all but the official title of NFL commissioner.

He’s already done more damage to “the shield,” as he often refers to the league’s iconic logo in the context of protecting its image, than the Saints’ Bountygate, the Patriots’ Spygate and all of James Harrison’s collisions combined, simply by virtue of being a salaciously bad commissioner.

And now a scandalously bad one, on top of that.

This one won’t go away. It just won’t. It can’t.

MORE

Column: Steelers’ solution? Ball so hard

by • Columns • Tags:

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

To dispense with this right off the top: Neither the Steelers nor the Browns experienced anything especially transformational at halftime Sunday.

“Nope,” Willie Gay was saying shortly after the home side’s finishing kick prevailed, 30-27, at Heinz Field. “Just another halftime. We came out ready. We were ready to play.”

Brian Hoyer’s view from the locker room down the Hall: “I think people realized there were 30 minutes of football to play, and we just decided as a team to go out and give it everything we got.”

Heady stuff, huh?

And those guys weren’t alone in that sentiment on either end. Player after player was asked about halftime, about a possible speech here or letdown there, and player after player came back Knute-free, narrative-free.

MORE

Column: Don’t dare look away from Rice saga

by • Columns • Tags:

BxCx0D5IYAAPVmP

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

They never saw the video. Until Monday, of course, when all of us saw it.

They never saw Ray Rice smash his girlfriend in the face with a left hook — insert all appropriate ‘allegedly’ references, if you must — then drag her out of the elevator, then just plop her there, face down on the floor. The man just stood there and looked at her.

Correction: That’s no man. No real man behaves that way.

It’s cowardly, it’s contemptible and, above all, it’s criminal.

But the emergence of the already infamous TMZ video also could be a blessing, however depressingly disguised. Because this could, if the right people respond the right way, make a real difference not just in the Baltimore backfield — and don’t kid yourself, that’s the impact a lot of folks are no doubt discussing — and not just in the NFL, but in society as a whole.

Or not.

Who am I kidding?

MORE

«< 9 10 11 12 13 >»