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A little bit of this and that as we fixate on two events of Madness, the one with the first name of March that concludes this weekend, and the other called the wild and crazy NFL Draft that comes up in three weeks:

QB QUANDRY: The Browns and their rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, have no idea as to who their starting quarterback will be in Week 1. The Browns’ messy story in that regard is well-chronicled, but that of the Steelers may be even messier. Will Aaron Rodgers say yes or no, and when will he give Pittsburgh his answer? The night before the opener? Nothing is out of the realm of possibility with that guy. Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin is usually as cool as a cucumber — except, of course, when he was bad-mouthing then New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick in a profanity-laced rant in the locker room following a game, completely unaware that it was accidentally being taped in the background by one of his own players who had something else going on. But Tomlin also looked incredibly nervous and uneasy as he spoke to reporters about the quarterback situation earlier this week at the NFL meetings in Palm Beach, Fla. I would be uneasy, too, if I were Tomlin. Does he have Ben Roethlisberger on speed-dial? Note to the Browns and Steelers: Whatever your plan, it had better work out because you’re in the AFC North with the Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals, whose quarterbacks are, respectively, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow. However, before those two teams get too fat and sassy, we will remind the Ravens that their guy needs to win some playoff games before he retires, and we must remind the Bengals that they need to have at least the semblance of a pro defense becsuse their guy can’t throw five touchdown passes every week.

HOORAY FOR HASLAM: Nobody has been harder on Browns owner Jimmy Haslam than me, but at the same time, to be fair, let’s give praise to him when it’s due.
And he deserves it for being more open and honest than he’s ever been when he spoke to the media on Monday. He admitted the team messed up royally with the Deshaun Watson situation, and also held stuggling General Manager Andrew Berry’s feet to the fire by saying he has to “nail it” in the draft. He sure does. Thank you for saying that. There is a glimmer of hope now.

PASSING JUDGMENT: The Steelers do a lot of things right. But the one thing they’ve struggled with since the franchise began in 1933 is being consistent in picking good quarterbacks. Before Terry Bradshaw came along in 1970, there were nearly four decades of struggles at the position. After Bradshaw retired, the Steelers struggled again for 20 yards until Roethlisberger arrived in 2004. Since Roethlisberger retired following the 2021 season, the Steelers are scuffling once more.

Steve King