Column: Pitt needs more than NFL legends

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 Tyler Boyd carries the ball on a drill at Pitt camp Monday. — PETE MADIA / PITT ATHLETICS

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Somewhere between seeing the new Sports Illustrated with LeSean McCoy of the Eagles on the regional cover, or hearing on NFL Network that the Rams’ defensive coaches are describing Aaron Donald as a specimen unlike any they’ve witnessed in two decades, or reading that Tom Savage might become the Texans’ backup QB, or catching up on the latest regarding Larry Fitzgerald, Darrelle Revis, Jabaal Sheard, Devin Street and others … it’s easily reinforced that there’s this immense incongruity between the caliber of player the Pitt football program produces and the caliber of team.

And it borders, in all candor, on the bizarre.

I mean, explain, please, how a program can land the occasional world-class player — and that category comfortably fits McCoy, Fitzgerald, Revis and now Donald — but can barely survive .500 on an annual basis because of its perpetually inferior supporting casts?

How does that happen?

Wait, better question: Will it happen yet again with Tyler Boyd?

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Column: What will Wheaton pull from hat?

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photo  Markus Wheaton signs for fans at Saint Vincent College after practice Sunday. — DEJAN KOVACEVIC

DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

LATROBE, Pa. — Maybe Markus Wheaton had lost a bet. Or maybe he just wanted to stay dry from the steady rain that soaked Saint Vincent College all Sunday long. Or maybe it was pure symbolism, a statement that he was ready to compete.

Whatever the case, the kid would not take off his helmet.

Chin-strap snapped up and all.

Why?

“Eh, I don’t know. It’s OK. I’m just leaving it on,” Wheaton was telling me nearly an hour after practice and, yes, the helmet stayed on through the whole interview.

It was all quite the sight, and not just Wheaton in isolation. This was one of those Mike Tomlin practices that punished as much as it reinforced. It was physical. It was a mental test, one drill added right after the previous had seemed like the last. It went 33 minutes longer than the two hours allotted and, when the final horn finally sounded, players were dragging, limping off the field. Most didn’t detour a single step in climbing the big hill up to the cafeteria to devour their dinners.

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Column: Nothing at all? Seriously?

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Neal Huntington thanked his scouts.

Not sure that’s one I’d heard before, but there it was: The Pirates’ GM, in the immediate aftermath of a Major League Baseball trading deadline that was about as productive as a waiver-wire plucking of some Double-A nobody — oh, wait, that’s actually all that went down — went out of his way to tell us reporters that his lieutenants had “worked tirelessly” in traveling “back and forth” across the country to study big-league players and write up reports, all aimed at the deadline.

And then … pfffffffffffffffffft.

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Source: Pirates NOT in on Price trade 326

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

So the Pirates and everyone besides the A’s lost out on Jon Lester. That gets the day off to a rollicking start, at least for Billy Beane, who for a day wins the hearts and minds not only of the statheads but also the headline-writers. He’ll still have zero wins in the category that counts.

Just saying. Not judging the trade itself.

I’ll follow the activity all day leading up to the actual 4 p.m. deadline. Feel free to join the fun in the comments below.

The fountain of information on a day like this is MLB Trade Rumors, but I’ll be looking to update links under the names of those prominent players dealt to the hometown sources. Oakland, for example, is covered wonderfully by San Francisco Chronicle beat writer (and fellow Crowded House fan!) Susan Slusser, so that’s the link up there under Lester.

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Column: Pirates’ smarter target is behind plate 171

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

If the Pirates really want to make an immense impact on their franchise and its fan base at Major League Baseball’s perpetually overhyped trade deadline, if they really want to do right by the present and future, if they really want to put the collective in the best possible position to end what Kent Tekulve rightly refers to as “the real streak around here” at 35 years, they’d do nothing more than tap their catcher’s shoulder today in Phoenix and make him an unimaginably wealthy man.

Don’t kid yourself: Russell Martin is the window.

Martin, more than anyone, is the source of all this angst over whether or not Neal Huntington will wind up acquiring Jon Lester, David Price, Ian Kennedy or any other big-name pitcher on the block today.

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Podcast: ‘DVE Morning Show’ talks site 2

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DEJAN KOVACEVIC, DK ON PITTSBURGH SPORTS

Here’s the podcast of my visit this morning with Randy Baumann yesterday on the ‘DVE Morning Show’ on 102.5 WDVE. Most of it was about the new site, career move and all that, but we got into a bit of Steelers near the end.

Later in the day, I did a full-three hour show on 105.9 the X. A podcast from that, my opening on the value of prospect Josh Bell to the Pirates, will be available here tomorrow morning.