This was the weekend the Steelers managed to jump out to a 13-0 lead at Indianapolis, only to surrender 30 unanswered points in absorbing yet another loss. At least this time it was to a team with a winning record.

Shortly after the Steelers had succumbed Saturday, the Penguins lost by a touchdown and PAT to Toronto, which is saying something considering the sport was hockey. It was the worst shutout loss for the Penguins since Sidney Crosby first pulled on the team sweater.

In the wake of yet another lost weekend for fans of pro sports in the ‘Burgh, we are left consider the historically unfamiliar state of affairs.

If the postseason began tomorrow in the NFL and NHL, it would begin without the Steelers or Penguins.

Of course, we almost always can count on the Pirates to miss the postseason. But the Steelers, who missed last season, as did the Penguins, are relative strangers to sustained postseason absences.

If both the Steelers and Penguins miss the postseason again this season, as presumably the Pirates will do once again in 2024, it would be historic hat track of shared futility among Pittsburgh pro franchises in terms of back-to-back seasons outside looking in to the playoffs.

All three franchises simultaneously missing the postseason for consecutive seasons had not happened since 1987 and 1988.

Let that sink in for a moment, For all the ongoing futility of the Pirates, and the periodic failures of the Steelers or Penguins, it’s been more than three decades since fans of Pittsburgh pro sports franchises have had to endure all three mired in back-to-back seasons outside the postseason.

At this point, the Steelers are a mere 7-7, among a gaggle of teams competing for an AFC wild-card spot. But that 7-7 record has been achieved with three consecutive losses and the Steelers clearly are a team on the decline.

Remaining games have the Steelers hosting a resurgent Cincinnati team, then making trips to Seattle and Baltimore. If the Steelers were a stock, you’d be selling.

The Penguins are another .500 team (13-13-3) but only a tad over one-third of the way through their season. They are tied for the third worst record in the Eastern Conference and have displayed both shaky goal tending and a very uncharacteristically unproductive power play.

There still is time for the Penguins to get it together – arguably for the Steelers, too.

But with each loss that time ticks away.

The Great Zelenskyy is making the rounds again, begging for more dollars to pour down the rathole that is Ukraine’s war with Russia.

That we keep forking over billions probably has nothing to do with the fact that Ukraine was and most likely is a hotbed of corruption, and our “Big Guy” has in the past seemed to be in it all up to his armpits.

Increasingly, the American public tires of seeing Zelenskyy show up in a T shirt and military-style clothing, shaking his begging bowl. And why does the guy always seem to be standing in a hole compared to all those who are near him?

Zelenskyy’s height is listed at 5-7, which is as big a stretch as his assertions that Ukraine is holding its own in the battle with Russia. Even Ukrainians are tiring of Zelenskyy’s propaganda on that front.

Zelenskyy looks more like Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the famed diminutive who made a name for herself as an unlikely sex therapist. Dr. Ruth’s height is listed as 4-foot, 7-inches. I can personally attest to her lack of stature, having met her at a Super Bowl commissioner’s party once upon a time.

If Zelenskyy is a full foot taller than the good doctor, I’m about 6-10. She also is better dressed and a whole lot more entertaining than Zelenskyy.

We salute Zelenskyy’s constant begging for money with updated lyrics to be sung to the tune of Little Drummer Boy.

Give me money

Pa rum pum pum pum

I have a war to win

Pa rum pum pum pum

This is my thing you see

Pa rum pum pum pum

To spend like I’m a king

Pa rum pum pum pum

Rum pum pum pum

Rum pum pum pum

So dig deep again

Pa rum pum pum pum

I’m never done

Me Zelenskyy

Pa rum pum pum pum

Ukraine’s my country

Pa rum pum pum pum

We fight a war for you

Pa rum pum pum pum

That we can’t win for you

Pa rum pum pum pum

Rum pum pum pum

Rum pum pum pum

The Russkies are too good

Pa rum pum pum pum

We’re on the run

Likely you have noticed disenchantment on college campuses regarding Israel.

Stopping just short of proclaiming Kill All Jews, these Hamas supporters as partakers of post-secondary education are pathetically uninformed. But what might one expect when the average college denizen cannot grasp that by definition a student loan is borrowed money that must be repaid?

They chant moronic slogans and wave their signs, many of them stupid in the extreme. These social justice warriors fall into such unlikely categories as Gays for Hamas and Jews for Hamas, neatly ignoring that Hamas would kill either on sight, due to general hatred.

With that in mind, we comment on such idiocy by updating lyrics to the standard We Three Kings of Orient Are.

Idiots on some college quads

Sing the praises of Hamas.

Morons, tools and troglodytes

All cannot see the light.

Why must we endure such crap

When we could just shut their yaps.

Oh, oh, this sad state of education

Bodes not well for our great nation.

Commie reading, leftward leaning

Our youth are just plain dumb.

These elites are so uninformed

Knowing little about the norm.

Backed by many usual suspects

We know now what to expect.

Oh, oh, hold your nose and watch the fools

Being used like useful tools.

Said to be our best and brightest

Instead they are just sad clowns.

When last we discussed the Steelers here, the case was made in passing that this year’s team of limited talent incredibly might win 12 games due to its ridiculously easy schedule.

But, as the Steelers have proved the past two weeks, while you can gift a team with pathetic opposition, you can’t guarantee they will take advantage by winning. And so it was that a pair of current 3-10 teams, Arizona and New England, claimed Steelers scalps amidst their otherwise stumbling, bumbling seasons.

This leaves the Steelers at 7-6 and, astonishingly, still among the teams that would make the AFC playoffs were the season to end today.

Alas, the Steelers have four more games to play and, judging by their production the past two outings, only the optimistic would expect two or more wins over that stretch.

It’s not that the opposition is especially daunting – with the exception of the Baltimore Ravens. And even those Ravens always seem to find a way to keep the Steelers in the game, even lose at times despite a superior record. Also, the Ravens might have their playoff seeding assured by the time they face the Steelers and rest star players.

Despite all this, I’m lumping that Ravens game in the loss category, where it has resided for some time according to my calculus. And we won’t cross that bridge until Jan. 7.

Meanwhile, the Steelers have, in order, games with Indianapolis Saturday, Cincinnati Dec. 23, and Seattle Dec. 31.

The Steelers and Colts are two of no fewer than six AFC teams sporting 7-6 records. The game is at Indianapolis, but I’m not sure that matters considering the Steelers lost their last two home games, against the aforementioned poor competition.

While the Steelers were imploding against Arizona and New England, the Colts found a way to get blown out by Cincinnati, 34-14, after the game was tied 14-14 at the half. That’s Cincinnati, playing without quarterback Joe Burrow.

But one of these lurching outfits, Steelers or Colts, likely will win this meeting, although an overtime tie would somehow be fitting.

Speaking of Cincinnati, the Bengals are yet another of those 7-6 AFC teams. This meeting with the Steelers will be played in Pittsburgh.

The Steelers then finish their season with road games at Seattle (6-7) and Baltimore (10-3).

I didn’t see the back-to-back losses coming to Arizona and New England, even though Bill Belichick owns Mike Tomlin. NBC’s NFL guru Peter King was in a similar position as me, describing himself as “borderline kind of stunned” that the Steelers could lose back-to-back home games to a pair of teams that had arrived with 2-10 records.

King added that the Steelers QB play is “putrid.”

And NBC’s Mike Florio noted that the Steelers made history, becoming the first team in NFL history with a winning record to lose back-to-back games to teams each at least 8 games under .500.

Speaking of history, this looks like yet another season that will be reduced to keeping alive the ability of Tomlin and his backers to boast of the coach never having had a losing season.

Kind of gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, doesn’t it?

Taylor Swift’s boyfriend’s NFL team, AKA the Kansas City Chiefs, lost a tough one Sunday to the Buffalo Bills. The Chiefs had an apparent go-ahead touchdown that was scored late in the fourth quarter get wiped out by an offside call against them.

How could the refs do this to Taylor? And it wasn’t nice for her boyfriend, either.

Let the record show that the bonehead KC wide receiver did line up offside, for no apparent reason. Watching the game on television with my son, I was heard to exclaim, “the idiot in the slot is way offside” or words to that effect.

Usually such exclamations fall on the deaf ears of my wife, who could care less. Yet, having spent most of my 35 years working at newspapers covering sports, I feel moved to make such observations.

When the play seemed to produce a touchdown, I speculated that since it was the Chiefs, the blatant infraction might not get called. Understand, there are those who suspect that the Chiefs get a lot of benefit of the doubt on officiating, and not just because Swift now is their biggest fan.

Just last season, in the AFC title game with Cincinnati, the Chiefs got an extra third down, benefited when they had a key personal foul called on a late hit against their quarterback near game’s end, did not receive a personal foul for a late hit on the Cincinnati quarterback, and got away with a hold or two on key offensive plays.

The Chiefs won by three points, on a last-second field goal.

Predictably, Cincinnati fans were not pleased with how this transpired. They were more than happy to suggest the NFL wanted a KC-Philadelphia Super Bowl, which would pit the KC coach Andy Reid against his former team, Swift’s boyfriend against his brother on Philly who is not Swift’s boyfriend, and feature the ever popular KC quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who seems to lead the league in commercial endorsements.

Benefiting from the second chance to stop KC’s offense Sunday, the soft and cheesy Bills defense did just that– three times. This produced the sort of out-of-control behavior we don’t get from Mahomes on those syrupy insurance commercials.

Screaming, cursing, slamming his helmet, needing to be held back by teammates, Mahomes was incensed at the officials. The cynics rushed to social media to declare that now he knows how Chiefs opponents feel when they can’t get a call while playing the Chiefs.

The most ridiculous take from Mahomes and his coach was that even though it was a penalty, the refs were at fault for not telling the wide receiver he was offside, or shouldn’t be calling penalties on such pretty plays. Understand, about the first thing kids learn while playing peewee football is how to line up correctly in relation to the line of scrimmage.

Also, officials will give alignment help if asked, and mostly to the widest men in the formation. To repeat, the KC bonehead didn’t ask, and was lined up tight in a bunch formation, far from the sideline where an official might have communicated with him. It’s on the wide receiver. Period.

Mahomes whined in his postgame interview that he doesn’t want officiating calls deciding games. But he was not outraged when the officials handed his team a win last year against the Bengals. Just a tad hypocritical, don’t you think?

The rage of Mahomes should be directed at his underachieving wide receivers, who not only line up incorrectly, but also have a habit of dropping passes hitting them in their hands.

Maybe Mahomes should be mad at management for not providing better receivers. Perhaps management should be mad at Mahomes for making so much money they can’t afford to hire competent wide receivers.

But Mahomes raging because officials called an obvious penalty – in a season during which more such calls are being made as an apparent point of emphasis – is ridiculous.

In the words of the great Taylor Smith: Shake it off.

So, Hunter Biden finally was indicted on some felonies – for income tax evasion.

That’s how the Feds took down Al Capone. Not murders. Not bootlegging. Not prostitution. Not drug running. Just failing to pay taxes on all those ill-gotten gains. I wonder if Hunter is guilty of any of those other Capone things?

Since it’s in the leftist hotbed of California in which Hunter has been indicted, we expect that, even if he is found guilty – and that’s a reach – his punishment will be needing to clean up human excrement on San Francisco streets for a day or two.

And then he’ll be clean, so to speak.

Wake me up when they get around to filing charges against Hunter and The Big Guy for selling the family’s influence to foreign bidders.

Meanwhile, I had cobbled up these fresh lyrics to an old Christmas standard even before Hunter’s indictment was announced. Talk about co-inky-dinks!

To be sung to the tune of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.”

We wish you a Biden Christmas

We wish you a Biden Christmas

We wish you a Biden Christmas

And a great grifting year.

Glad tidings we bring, from ChiComs and friends

We wish you a Biden Christmas

And a great grifting year.

Oh, bring us a Brandon present

Oh, bring us a Brandon present

Oh, bring us a Brandon present

That’s a box of depends.

Glad tidings we bring, from ChiComs and friends

We wish you a Biden Christmas

And a great grifting year.

He won’t go until he gets some

He won’t go until he gets some

He won’t go until he gets some

So bring Jill right here.

Glad tidings we bring, from ChiComs and friends

We wish you a Biden Christmas

And a great grifting year.

Now Hunter goes to trial

Now Hunter goes to trial

Now Hunter goes to trial

Let’s see how that ends.

Glad tidings we bring, from Chicoms and friends

We wish you a Biden Christmas

And a great grifting year.

The FBI has gone from domestic crime prevention unit to a politically weaponized secret police co-opted to pursue perceived enemies of the public.

Worse, they don’t let the rule of law impede their persecutions.

That’s why it was sad, pathetic and yet amusing when current director Christopher Wray was trying to explain to Congress why his SS unit now is conducting an inquisition of Catholics as terrorists.

In that spirit, we present updated lyrics to be sung to the tune of “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree.”

Following ‘hind the FBI

As they put it to the right

Better be quiet, low-profile

And just keep yourself from sight

They’re on a hunt to bury truth

And to prop the left upright

Laws can be broke, bent and ignored

Just to satisfy the Woke

Yet there is a hopeful feeling when we see

Wray before the Congress kneeling

Spewing pap without much feeling

Old Wray he makes a sad, sad sight

As he tries to dim the light.

Can’t we just fire this wretched soul

And so resolve this plight?

Following ‘hind the FBI

’cause we can’t believe our eyes

Persecuting Catholics, Trump, et al

With a pack of complete lies.

Today we continue a holiday tradition, born years back when I wrote some freelance columns for the Tribune-Democrat and I took it upon myself to update the words to Christmas songs.

Back then I didn’t have carte blanche in terms of space and publication dates, so I had to pack fresh lyrics to several songs into each submission. With the freedom of a blog, writing as often, or infrequently, as I desire, I’m planning on one example per blog post.

Today’s inspiration comes from my late teenage years (and early 20s, perhaps) when most of my friends and I drove cars that were roadworthy only if you squinted hard and took a few hits of your favorite adult beverage.

We used to carry wire hangers with us, the better to use to secure fallen exhaust systems, hold down a hood, or keep a balky door closed. Hammers, to beat on hit-and-miss starters, also were common.

I had a 1973 Pinto whose overhead cam belt used to skip a few teeth at high RPMs. I carried a box wrench, 9/16s of an inch as I recall, so that when it happened I could stop the car, lift the hood, loosen the distributor hold-down bolt, and re-time the thing by ear.

On one trip to Pittsburgh, for a Pitt-Penn State game, I failed to have the wrench along. The belt skipped and the car ran progressively rougher and rougher before failing totally, just as I pulled in front of my house to conclude the return journey The ignition points were burned out.

Our cars rode on tires of questionable pedigree, with engines that were rated in miles-per-gallon of oil they burned, rather than miles-per-gallon of gasoline consumed.

My brother once used a sweeper hose to connect the side exhaust pipes on his Camaro.

Repeat, we drove heaps.

As an ode to that time, here’s a few verses to be sung to the tune of “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)”

Fenders flapping on the open road,

Tires that have given up the ghost.

Fading brakes little more than a joke,

And what bothers me the most, is the heater’s broke.

But, what the heck, it gets me there.

Sometimes even gets me back.

And though you may say, it has seen better days.

It’s my car.

It’s my car.

It’s my car.

That wreck!

I had a bad day with my college football picks Saturday, going just 2-3. The College Football Playoff selection committee had an even worse day Sunday.

These cloistered geniuses broke precedent by excluding an unbeaten champion (Florida State) from a power five conference – in this case the Atlantic Coast Conference – and put a pair of once-beatens (Texas and Alabama) into its four-team field.

These two join unbeaten Michigan of the Big Ten and unbeaten Washington of the about-to-be-dissolved Pac-12 in making the cut.

And thereby we have removed yet another argument that college football is anything more than a semi-pro feeder system for the NFL, designed to make mammoth profits for schools, constantly realigning conferences and many other parasites.

Student-athletes? Yeah, right. Success on the field rewarded? It’s hard to be better than unbeaten.

This has been a long-running trend. Witness how many college teams selectively recruit key cogs in the transfer portal. To argue this is anything more than athletic restocking is a joke.

Previously, such widespread transfers were held in check by rules requiring transferring players to sit out a season.

Now, it’s just another recruiting session; free agency for experienced players. Not only do schools have to land athletes coming out of high school or junior college, now they have to battle to keep them from honing their skills at one school and then moving on to greener pastures if one of the big-time operations has a glaring need at one position or another.

The right thing at this point would be just to pay the athletes in revenue-making sports and drop the charade that this about playing for good, old State U.

Florida State was penalized because all-everything quarterback Jordan Travis suffered a season-ending leg injury. Without him, the Seminoles offense was not as potent. His backup was sidelined with a concussion for the ACC title game, leaving an untested, third-team freshman to start. The Seminoles still beat a good Louisville team for the title, and had won previous games without Travis.

The reward was also-ran status in the playoffs.

Also left on the outside looking in was a once-beaten Georgia team, the two-time defending national champions who had a 29-game winning streak snapped by Alabama in the SEC title game.

The winning margin was three points. It very easily could have gone the other way but for a missed Georgia field goal attempt and an Alabama freebie field goal coming off a turnover by Georgia deep in its territory.

It was clear the fix was in for Alabama when expert after expert treated the outcome as if it had been an Alabama domination.

Part of the explanation for that is Alabama coach Nick Saban, who shows up on national commercials much more frequently than on the sidelines and is a larger-than-life figure pandered to by many, including the selection committee.

You don’t need to be wearing a tinfoil hat if you see a conspiracy in that the committee needed to get Alabama in, but couldn’t ignore the loss to Texas. So, Texas had to be in, too. Sorry, Florida State, as an unbeaten you were passed over not once, but twice.

Nonstop reverence for Alabama is a variation of the way Notre Dame is ranked highly every football season until the Fighting Irish absolutely, positively prove they do not deserve the acclaim by losing enough games.

To the credit of Saban and Alabama, they don’t often lose. But, when they do, they always seem to get the second chance that, say, Georgia doesn’t.

Yes, Alabama beat Georgia on a neutral field. But Texas had beaten Alabama by a larger margin, on Alabama’s home field, earlier in the season.

And Chokelahoma had beaten Texas in their annual Red River Rivalry game.

No one had beaten Florida State.

At this point why even have a regular season? Just let the committee sit around eating donuts and tell us how it all would have played out.

Sports, by their nature, are full of surprising outcomes that don’t go according to the resumes.

Consider that defending NCAA Men’s Basketball national champion, UConn, was ranked 10^th in the final poll before the NCAA Tournament.

Were that championship a four-team playoff field, decided by the geniuses, the eventual champion would not even have made the party.

Florida State did all that it should have needed to do to make the football playoff final four. That the playoff field expands to 12 teams next season, something to which playoff selection committee apologists point to as some sort of saving grace, matters little to this year’s Florida State team.

Or to Georgia.

College football stinks with hypocrisy and, as with fish, it rots from the head down.

Oregon

Texas

Georgia

Louisville

Michigan