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There is Not a Single Relevant Sports Team in Pittsburgh
Published:
The Pittsburgh Steelers lost to the Houston Texans on Monday night, 30 to 6 on their home field to exit the postseason:
42-year-old Aaron Rodgers threw for 146 yards and an interception against the league’s best defense. Kenny Gainwell and Jaylen Warren carried the ball 18 times for 63 yards. This was easy money for anybody who watched either of these teams at least once during the regular season.
To recap, the Pittsburgh Steelers last won a playoff game on January 16th of 2016. Barack Obama was still in office and Ben Roethlisberger was handing the ball to Le’Veon Bell and throwing it to Antonio Brown.
In the nine years since, they are 0-5 in the Wild Card round and 0-1 in the Divisional Round. They have not been able to find a franchise quarterback since Big Ben’s departure and yet Mike Tomlin is going on 20 years at the helm.
Now, to the other teams in the Burgh:
Penguins
The Penguinos have not won a playoff series since 2018, when they defeated the Flyers 4-2 in the opening round, which is not an achievement. Anybody can beat the Flyers in the playoffs.
But the truth is that the Flyers have a better outlook than the Penguins, who have missed the postseason in three straight years and now find themselves 5th in the Metro with 51 points. Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang are almost 40 years old, and Erik Karlsson is 35. Those four players are among the top six Penguins in point production this season, with Bryan Rust and Anthony Mantha the other two, and those guys are 33 and 31 years old. They are older than dirt. That team is going absolutely nowhere until they move on from the nostalgia act and get serious about starting over.
Pirates
It’s been a full decade since the Buccos posted a winning record, when A.J. Burnett, Charlie Morton, and J.A. Happ were in the rotation. Since 1979, when they won the World Series with MVP Willie Stargell, the Pirates’ only series win is the 2013 Wild Card, when they defeated the Cincinnati Reds with home runs from Marlon Byrd and Russell Martin.
The Pirates are so bad that in 2024 a pair of Republican lawmakers put out a press release, saying that the lack of winning was detrimental to the Commonwealth’s economy.
Pitt Panthers football
Don’t even get me started on these jokers. Pitt had the worst College Gameday of all time this past season, when a few hundred jabronies shuffled over to Heinz from Oakland. Then they promptly got their doors blown off by Notre Dame in a total laugher that everyone saw coming.
These guys play in a soft ACC and yet only twice have they been able to win nine or more games since leaving the Big East. And the 2021 season was a complete fluke. That 11-3 Pitt team lost to Western Michigan and somehow ended up with Wake Forest in the title game because the rest of the conference was terrible. That Pitt vs. Wake Forest game was the worst conference championship game of all time.
Pitt football is going nowhere with Pat Narduzzi at the helm. The guy is a stone cold loser.
Pitt Panthers basketball
They’ve been irrevelent since Jamie Dixon left. I’m old enough to remember when they had guys like Carl Krauser and Sam Young and DeJuan Blair and were a Big East wagon. Playing them in Pittsburgh or in Madison Square Garden was a battle. Now they’re just another team in a bloated ACC. There’s nothing special about them.
Riverhounds
One of the better lower-level soccer teams out there, honestly. Probably the best-run organization in Pittsburgh.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com