Apr 1, 2022 5 min read

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Mike Tomlin and Kevin Colbert said this week that the Steelers aren’t just messing around when it comes to researching the quarterbacks available in this month’s draft.

Tomlin went so far as to say the Steelers will “probably” select a quarterback in the draft, which will be held April 28-30.

That begs the question, will that quarterback the team selects be on the 28th, when the first round of the draft is held, or will it be on the 29th or 30th? There’s a big difference.

The Steelers signed Mitch Trubisky in free agency. He’ll be their starting quarterback in 2022. And they did so because they didn’t have to do anything to acquire him other than have him put pen to paper.

“We were really interested in Mitch and I think he was really interested in us,” said Tomlin. “Those are good things. He was just an attractive guy to us. It didn’t require us to use any of our draft capital to acquire his services. That was attractive. He’s been a winner. He’s got experience and youth. He’s healthy. There was just so much of his profile that was attractive to us in terms of what we were looking for in the position.”

But the Steelers are still looking for a future potential franchise quarterback – largely because they don’t know if Trubisky is that, not having worked with him yet.

So, Tomlin and Colbert, the team’s outgoing GM, have made a point of sitting down with Pitt’s Kenny Pickett, Liberty’s Malik Willis, Matt Corral of Ole Miss and Desmond Ridder of Cincinnati for dinner at their pro days. Tomlin has been spotted chatting those guys up.

And they would have done the same with North Carolina’s Sam Howell, whose pro day was Monday, had Tomlin not had to be here at The Breakers Resort for the league meetings.

Instead, Colbert flew solo for that pro day.

The Steelers aren’t faking their interest in the quarterbacks to create subterfuge. They don’t want to be in a spot where they pass on taking a potential long-term solution at quarterback when they don’t necessarily have one in house after Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement.

“We’re just trying to make sure we cover all our bases,” Colbert said this week. “When you have a person such as Mike out on the road, Mike visits more pro days probably than any other head coach. He does it intentionally because he wants to see these players. When a coach like Mike is out on the road and he’s talking to a player or a coach, that does attract attention. But there’s no reason for that other than we’re just trying to cover our bases.”

• Even if the Steelers do draft a quarterback and Trubisky has a good season, the team could have a very tradeable commodity at the end of the season.

Trubisky’s contract has a base salary of just $8 million in 2023, meaning if he rebounds with a solid season, he would easily draw interest in the trade market next season if the Steelers chose to go in that direction.

• Yes, the Pirates have been contacted by teams – the Marlins and Padres – about possible trades for Bryan Reynolds.

No, the Pirates aren’t shopping him.

The Pirates would be fools not to at least listen to offers for Reynolds, their best player. After all, you never know when another team might do something foolish.

That doesn’t mean the Pirates are interested in moving Reynolds just to do so. They would have to be bowled over to make a deal.

• The youth baseball season starts locally this week with Pony teams beginning practice all over Washington County.

And we can now truly call the Pony season a county-wide event.

The Founders league will have 16 teams competing in it this season. The team from which the World Series team will be chosen will come from players from those 16 teams.

Washington Youth Baseball, from which the team used to be selected until the Founders League was created, hasn’t had 16 teams competing in it in several decades.

This year’s league has six teams in Washington, comprised of players from the Trinity, Washington, McGuffey and Bentworth school districts, four from the Canon-McMillan School District, three from Chartiers-Houston and one each from Burgettstown, Avella and Fort Cherry.

While former Waynesburg University catcher Ben Miller did a great job with the team in the World Series the past two times they competed, he could not manage the team this year.

But one of Miller’s former Waynesburg University teammates, Tyler Rubasky, who was a catcher for the Yellow Jackets, has been tapped to be the replacement.

Rubasky, a former graduate assistant coach at Waynesburg, currently is an assistant baseball coach at Davis & Elkins University.