Jul 14, 2023 5 min read

In a little less than two weeks, the Steelers will report to training camp at Saint Vincent College. At that point, things begin to get real.

One of the most frequently asked questions during an offseason is how this or that player “looks?’

To be fair, I gave up on answering that question several years ago. There are a lot of players who look great in May – when nobody is in pads and there is no fear of being hit – who don’t in August.

Does Jahine Arnold ring a bell with anyone? How about Dri Archer?

Spring is flag football. The NFL, however, is not simply getting a bunch of fast guys and putting them on the field. Toughness still matters.

Case and point to that was the quick emergence of running back Jaylen Warren at last year’s camp.

Warren looked good in the spring, but with nobody hitting or tackling, it was tough for him to stand out.

Once the pads went on, his physicality and toughness as a runner quickly became apparent.

That’s what training camp is for.

• The national opinions on the Steelers might be shifting ever so slightly.

Last week, ESPN published the updated odds for every Steelers game per Caesars Sportsbook.

There isn’t a game on the schedule now in which the Steelers are underdogs by more than one score. Nor are they favored by more than one score in any game.

The largest spread against them is at Cincinnati in Week 12, a game in which they are currently 5-point underdogs. The largest spread in their favor is in Week 13. The Steelers are 6.5-point favorites against the Cardinals.

The spread in every other game is three points one way or the other, with the lone other exception to that being a Week 9 meeting with the Titans. The Steelers are favored by 3.5 points in that game.

All told, the Steelers are favored in eight games and underdogs in seven. A Week 7 game at Los Angeles against the Rams is listed as a pick ’em game, while there is currently no line on the regular-season finale at Baltimore.

The betting public also seems pretty strongly to favor the Steelers going over their win projected total of 8.5. That has been bet up to minus-155, meaning you have to bet $155 to win $100.

Considering the Steelers have gone over on their win total in three consecutive seasons and in seven of the past nine, and also have not have a losing season since 2003, that makes sense.

• So, Bob Huggins is now claiming his wife sent a resignation email to West Virginia in his name following his arrest for DUI in Pittsburgh last month and that he didn’t do it.

Huggins also said he has checked himself into a rehab facility and will stay there until he is reinstated as head coach of the Mountaineers men’s basketball program.

This was all part of a lawsuit Huggins filed against the school in an effort now to keep his job.

If Huggins is serious about staying in rehab until he’s reinstated, he’d better buckle up. It’s going to be a lengthy term.

• If Major League Baseball wants its players for the All-Star Game to wear the same colored jerseys, that’s fine. It does make things easier on the players on the field if they’re throwing to players in the same jersey color – let alone giving the league marketing ability to sell jerseys.

But can’t they at least wear their team hat? To be clear, the hats worn by the players in the All-Star Game did have their team logo on it. But instead of being the team hat, they were all gray.

Now, gray is a fine color. But why have everyone wear the same jersey and hat? How about just a little bit of a nod to the players’ respective team?

• McMurray native Alison Riske-Amritraj’s first-round loss at Wimbledon to Paula Badosa wasn’t stunning.

After all, Badosa was ranked 35th in the world going into Wimbledon, while Riske-Amitraj was 144th.

But what is stunning is that Riske-Amitraj was one of just 19 U.S. women in the field. Of those, only two made the quarterfinals, with both fourth-seeded Jessica Pegula and 25 seed Madison Keys losing.

Things are even more bleak for U.S. tennis on the men’s side. Only 13 players qualified in the men’s field. And just one of those, Christopher Eubanks, made it to the quarterfinals.

The Williams sisters carried the torch for U.S. tennis for years. But now with Serena Williams retired and Venus barely hanging on, the state of tennis in this country might be at an all-time low.