The Steelers have a bye week, Penn State has the equivalent of an off week and MLB has gotten rid of a lot of the wild-card chaff. Let’s try to make sense of it all.
The Steelers are 3-1 and already in great shape in the AFC North standings. Blessed with yet another cake schedule, the Steelers have beaten three teams with a collective 4-8 record. Their lone loss was to the only legitimate team they faced currently with a winning record, 3-1 Seattle.
I had the Steelers 4-0 at this point, so I was a bit optimistic, having presumed that Seattle would not be quite as strong as it has appeared. The rest I anticipated, correctly.
Meanwhile, the entire AFC North is a mess. Cleveland is, well, Cleveland; terrible year after year.
Cincinnati, 2-2, again has lost quarterback Joe Burrow to injury and, without Burrow, Cincinnati pretty much is Cleveland.
Baltimore has played a tough schedule and has the bruises to prove it at 1-3, right there with the Browns. Baltimore has stumbled and bumbled, is compiling quite an injured list, and generally is looking to be in trouble.
Add in the hamstring injury to quarterback Lamar Jackson and the Ravens are a long way from the supposed Super Bowl contenders they were painted to be. Jackson, pre-injury, already was providing more of the same, spectacular plays punctuated with spectacular gaffes, so even with him, they likely were not destined for the Super Bowl.
Bottom line: The Steelers are making the most of an easy schedule and their division competition is imploding.
If ancient Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers can avoid injury, the Steelers are a virtual playoff lock. Once there, they will do little, as has been their recent history. But, enjoy the rest of the regular season.
Speaking of doing little, Penn State and its coach Big Game James Franklin are back in their collective comfort zone, playing a pathetically easy opponent — in this case UCLA.
Once, UCLA was a proud program. Now, not to much. The Bruins are 0-4 and ranked third in ESPN’s Bottom 10 of worst teams in college football.
Not only has UCLA lost every game, it’s lost those games to similarly pathetic opposition and fired a coach along the way.
Penn State can name the score today, just the way Franklin likes it. As one Penn State player said in the wake of the loss to Oregon last weekend, now the team can get back to doing what it expects, which is beating bad teams while waiting for the next good team to show up on the schedule and claim a Nittany Lion scalp.
As for MLB, Los Angeles didn’t dominate the regular season as expected, but the Dodgers sure did make short work of wild-card pretender Cincinnati.
Boston-New York was interesting, with the Yankees prevailing.
Chicago took care of San Diego in three games and Detroit got the best of Cleveland in a three-game series both teams looked like they didn’t want to win.
Nothing really has changed from my assessment of things before the MLB postseason began. The eventual winner will be one of the payroll heavyweights, with teams such as Cleveland, Cincinnati and even Milwaukee, inexplicably the team with the best regular-season record, there mostly to flesh out the field.
It will be interesting to monitor the Philadelphia-Los Angeles series. Forced to pick, I’d take LA.
Toronto vs. the Yankees has some spice. Again, forced to pick, I’d take the Yankees.
Milwaukee enters its series with Chicago needing to erase a stretch of playoff futility in which the Brewers have not advanced past the first round since 2018. This series should be close and could go either way based on a break or two.
Finally, I’d be amazed if Detroit, which backed into the postseason and almost disappeared in the wild-card round, could get past Seattle.
Enjoy.
Sam Ross Jr's site 