Mark Madden: Steelers should pursue veteran QB; expect familiar face as offensive coordinator

Refreshing sports notes: They’re popular, they’re a lazy writer’s retreat and they super-serve the limited attention span of the stupid. Everybody wins!

• Lots of fuss is being made about prime targets for the Steelers’ offensive coordinator job: Zac Robinson, Kliff Kingsbury, etc. Here’s betting the Steelers get whoever the other seven teams with openings don’t want. Top names won’t flock to work for a defensive-minded head coach such as Mike Tomlin, or to rely on a meh quarterback like Kenny Pickett. I’m still thinking Byron Leftwich.

• The Steelers won’t get Kirk Cousins, Justin Fields or Russell Wilson. But they should. With Pickett, the Steelers have zero chance to legit compete. Pickett won’t outplay Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow en route to winning the AFC North.

• I wonder if the receivers’ room wants what management wants at quarterback. Probably not. Diontae Johnson: “Hopefully (Mason Rudolph) gets the job next year. He did a great job.” Johnson is ego-driven. That doesn’t make him wrong.

• I can’t wait to watch T.J. Watt’s head explode (brother J.J.’s, too) after the former doesn’t win AP Defensive Player of the Year on Feb. 8 when the NFL’s major awards are presented. T.J. deserves it. But he won’t get it. Cleveland’s Myles Garrett will. But it’s fun to see the Watts get all worked up. (It would be more fun to watch T.J. finally win a playoff game someday.)

• Jonathan Bombulie of this parish opined this on my radio show: The Penguins might not rebuild till Sidney Crosby, Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin are done. Management will keep trying different talent around them in a vain attempt to win, then implode at cycle’s end. It sounds odd but could happen. There’s a definite commitment to the core three and coach Mike Sullivan. This notion includes letting Jake Guentzel walk via free agency at season’s end for the sake of eking out a playoff spot. It’s total servitude to Crosby, Letang and Malkin. But none of them could ask out or even complain. This is what they wanted.

• There’s no point to firing Sullivan. The Penguins are playing well five-on-five. They stink on the power play and in three-on-three overtime. But no logical replacement is available. The New York Islanders are recycling Patrick Roy after eight years away from coaching in the NHL. Sullivan is a good coach. He has likely hit his expiration date in Pittsburgh. But give him till season’s end. (And probably longer. See above.)

• I wonder if president of hockey ops/GM Kyle Dubas wants what Fenway Sports Group wants. You’d think the plan was laid out upon his hiring. But it’s a waste of Dubas to have him orchestrate a long, fruitless fond farewell to the core three.

• The Eastern Conference is terrible. Ninety points is an obscenely low total, but it might get a wild-card spot in the East. That could be the Penguins’ salvation, however briefly.

• That own goal at Arizona on Monday with goalie Tristan Jarry pulled during a delayed penalty was the Penguins’ season in a nutshell: The Penguins couldn’t get out of their own way, and two of their best players were the culprits.

• The Edmonton Oilers have won 14 straight and are a threat to the NHL record of 17 consecutive victories set by the Penguins in 1992-93 near that season’s very end. That streak distracted the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins and fatigued them before the playoffs, which saw them upset in the second round by the New York Islanders. The Oilers’ streak is amazing because they needed it to save their season. Even now they’re only third in the Pacific Division and just six points safe in a postseason spot.

• The Pirates badly need starting pitching and more bats, but I like signing reliever Aroldis Chapman to a one-year pact worth $10.5 million. Chapman and David Bednar provide a great lefty-righty late-inning bullpen combination, establishing one clear strength for the Pirates. That’s better than no clear strengths. The trick will be taking leads into the eighth inning. The punchline will be dealing Chapman at the trade deadline.

• There’s no harm in NFL telecasts featuring the rapture of Taylor Swift, or Jason Kelce bro-ing out in drunken, shirtless fashion. But it’s stupid. The NFL had 93 of 2023’s 100 top-rated TV shows. The NFL divisional-round playoff games averaged 40 million viewers. Is the league so desperate for additional exposure? (Of course it is. Greed is the NFL’s primary building block.)

• Brock Purdy is a great QB. The rush to minimize his accomplishments is wrong. Local yokels thinking Pickett could do the same in San Francisco is nuts.

• The Buffalo Bills are incapable of winning a big game. Disappointment is in their DNA. Same with the Dallas Cowboys. The Toronto Maple Leafs have more resources than any NHL team but haven’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967. They have a very good team now. But you just know they won’t win. They’re infected.