Mark Madden: Steelers would be smart to pursue edge rusher Kyle Van Noy

If refreshing sports notes are wrong, you don’t want to be right! Something for everybody!

• Pro Football Focus projects the Pittsburgh Steelers as a possible landing spot for free-agent veteran edge rusher Kyle Van Noy. Sounds like a good idea. Fourth-round draft pick Nick Herbig isn’t a known commodity. Van Noy is, albeit one past his prime at 32. T.J. Watt will get injured and miss games. The Steelers need more than they got at edge. (My over/under for games missed by Watt is five. Maybe.)

• The NFL schedule gets announced Thursday. We already know exactly who the Steelers will play and where. But the schedule reveal will trigger child-like excitement as everybody predicts the Steelers results game-by-game. The citizens bite every hook the NFL casts. So do the media.

• Fox’s Colin Cowherd says the Steelers are “sneaky good” but ranks them just ninth among AFC teams. That’s called damning with accurate praise.

• CBSSports.com ranks the Steelers’ Kenny Pickett 28th among the NFL’s starting quarterbacks. Writes Cody Benjamin: “Pickett thrived more as a late-game fighter than efficient full-timer.” Have a second helping of damning with accurate praise.

• Quarterback Cam Newton, the 2015 NFL MVP, says his dreadlocks are the reason he’s not on an NFL roster. He says his hair “is scarin’ people.” But Newton wasn’t in the NFL last season and lost all five of his starts with Carolina in 2021. If the dreads are the problem, hacking them off to earn the veteran minimum of $1.165 million seems like a good business move. But Newton would rather hang onto his principles. And his excuse.

• Much of the crowd (almost 35,000 — not bad) at PNC Park on Saturday booed catcher Austin Hedges as the Pirates were on their way to a sixth straight loss. That’s typical Pittsburgh: Find somebody nondescript to blame. Hedges is like Matt Canada with shin guards. Meantime, the Pirates haven’t plated more than two runs in any of their (now) seven consecutive defeats. They’ve been outscored 44-9. Turns out you can’t steal first base.

Related:

• Madden Monday: On Steelers' offseason, 'people act like they have solved all of their problems — they haven't'
• Tim Benz: Pirates doing a lot to prove skeptics right; they better stop the trend this week
• First Call: Steelers get an 'A' offseason grade; Omar Khan deflects knowledge of Jets' draft plans before trade

• Andrew McCutchen is hitting .238. Are you going to boo him?

• The Pirates are 20-15. You’d have taken that start if it had been proposed before the season. The Pirates are a bit better than last year. They’re laying a legitimate foundation for future improvement. They started 20-8, and you imagined a contender. But the Pirates are going to arrive on their schedule, not yours. Be patient. Anybody who said the Pirates might get a playoff spot is stupid, pandering or both.

• Oakland A’s broadcaster Glen Kuiper stumbled over a word, a racial slur came out, there was zero intent, he apologized. That should have been the end of it. Instead, Kuiper got suspended. The woke rush to cancel has obliterated common sense.

• Not many have ever pitched better than Vida Blue in 1971 with Oakland: 24-8, 1.82 ERA, 301 strikeouts, Cy Young Award, AL MVP. He might have been even more dominant than his numbers. Blue died Saturday. RIP.

• LeBron James Jr. will attend Southern Cal. Wasn’t he supposed to go to Duquesne to play for Sr.’s buddy, coach Keith Dambrot? Wait till the machinations begin to get LeBron and Bronny on the same NBA team, even if Bronny isn’t good enough.

• When NHL teams get two good forwards, they pretend they have the equivalent of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in their primes. With Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, Edmonton does. Draisaitl has 13 goals in eight playoff games. McDavid has five but with 10 assists. To validate their legacies, McDavid and Draisaitl must win a Stanley Cup. With those two humming and a power play that’s netted 14 times in eight playoff games, the Oilers have a legit shot.

• McDavid did an interview on TNT after Edmonton’s 5-1 win at Vegas on Saturday. He was drier than the Sahara. McDavid is a bit of a sourpuss to start with. The NHL just can’t get a charismatic star, let alone one in a big market.

• Rick Tocchet did an excellent job after taking over as Vancouver’s coach in midseason, guiding the Canucks to a 20-12-4 mark. But Vancouver missed the playoffs, so Tocchet is back with TNT’s studio coverage, and not a moment too soon. His analysis is spot-on and accessible, and he reels things in when they sometimes get silly.

• When Wayne Gretzky is on TNT, he’s so bland you forget he’s Wayne Gretzky.

• My biggest rooting interest in these playoffs is seeing a game in Toronto with the Maple Leafs facing elimination. It would be medieval. They might light fires in the stands. Fifty-six years of pressure could make Scotiabank Arena explode.

• In 2010, a Chicago Blackhawks video coach sexually assaulted a player. The organization didn’t properly address the situation, keeping it quiet. It went public in 2021. Stan Bowman lost his job as Chicago GM. Joel Quenneville, the Blackhawks coach in 2010, was ousted as Florida coach. Neither has worked in hockey since. Neither is suspended by the NHL, but it’s whispered that teams would have to clear it with the league before hiring either. Shouldn’t Bowman’s and Quenneville’s status be openly addressed by the NHL? Shouldn’t they get due process? That’s asking, not advocating. They were part of something terrible.