Aug 8, 2015 5 min read

Who needs two?

How would you like two tickets to tonight’s Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio?

Prices may be a little higher now, but as of Friday afternoon, StubHub had two tickets on the 20-yard line for $200.25.

How about a parking pass for $125?

To see Landry Jones play quarterback?

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said Ben Roethlisberger will be standing on the sidelines tonight against the Vikings.

So will Le’Veon Bell, Murkice Pouncey, Antonio Brown, Heath Miller and James Harrison.

In other words, just about every player worth seeing won’t be seen.

Resting the starters in early preseason games is nothing new, but fans used to be able to count on seeing the starters at least play a series or two.

Minnesota Vikings coach Mike Zimmer was a little more coy about how much his starters would play but he gave the impression lots of them would be missing in action.

Fans of the Steelers and Vikings – at least the ones watching on TV and not paying a hundred bucks a ticket – might be OK with watching wannabes and never-wills. What about NFL fans in, say, Keokuk, Iowa?

This game is going to be televised nationally by NBC.

Only a company with a monopoly could get away with charging regular prices for a blatantly inferior product and the NFL sure has one of those.

Absent the monopoly, do you think the Steelers and Vikings might feel a little pressure to at least give the customers a taste of the real product?

Wouldn’t they be a little worried about backlash from giving people Landry Jones at Ben Roethlisberger prices?

The Hall of Fame Game is played at a neutral site, and maybe fans living in a small town like Canton are just thrilled to have the opportunity to see humans wearing NFL uniforms in their local stadium, but the rest of the preseason – or, as they used to be called, exhibition – games will be played in publicly funded stadiums and customers will be paying regular season prices.

After listening to season-ticket buyers howl about being forced to buy exhibition-game tickets in their season-ticket packages, the Steelers lowered the price but made up the difference by instituting a tier system that charges more for the most attractive regular-season games. As of Friday, you could get a ticket to the Steelers’ first home exhibition game against the Carolina Panthers for $7. That’s the free market telling you how much a ticket to an NFL exhibition game is really worth.

Obviously, because of the hoopla surrounding player inductions, the Hall of Fame Game is about more than the game but it’s on national TV and, unless you’re a Steelers or Vikings fan, it becomes a snoozefest about eight minutes into the telecast.

Here’s an idea: Move the Hall of Fame weekend to the third week of the preseason.

That’s the week when the starters usually play at least three quarters and the paying customers and TV viewers actually get something that resembles a real NFL game.

Shouldn’t a showcase game showcase the product in the best possible light? That’s a stupid question unless you’re talking about a monopoly.

And come to think of it, considering the value of a star NFL quarterback, the Steelers would be wise to not play Roethlisberger until the last exhibition game, if at all.

Let Landry Jones keep the customers satisfied.

• How is it the Pirates didn’t know before the trade deadline A.J. Burnett had a sore arm? He gave up more than an earned run per inning in his first three starts after the all-star break. Then, he finds out he has an inflamed elbow and goes on the 15-day disabled list. Was there no conversation about how his arm was feeling as he was pitching at a 10.00 ERA clip?

Maybe Burnett could have gone to the Pirates and told them his arm was sore.

• Ray Rice deserves another chance. He’s 28 years old. He’s paid a huge price for what he did. It’s time for some NFL team to at least give him a tryout. If the Steelers did, would you have a problem with it? I wouldn’t.

• Here’s what the Indianapolis Colts equipment manager, Sean Sullivan, said to general manager Ryan Grigson before the AFC Championship game against the New England Patriots in an email dated Jan. 17: “As far as the game balls are concerned, it’s well known around the league that, after the Patriots’ game balls are checked by the officials and brought out for the game usage, the ballboys for the Patriots will let out some air with a ball needle because their quarterback likes a smaller ball so he can grip it better.”

And there’s the answer to questions about why the NFL is letting the deflategate scandal drag on. “Around the league, it’s well known….”

Guilty.

John Steigerwald writes a weekly sports column for the Observer-Reporter.