Dale Lolley

The NCAA has been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. And it still can’t get things right.

David DeCastro’s release on Thursday came as a surprise – sort of.

The NFL is pretty much done fooling around when it comes to COVID-19.

Thursday was a sad day for the Pittsburgh sports world.

The Steelers began their OTAs in earnest last week, with more than two-third of their roster showing up for the voluntary workouts.

When you’re right, you’re right.

Spare me the anguish over the Steelers taking a running back in the first round of the NFL Draft.

A little later this week, the NFL Draft will be held. And it will be unlike any other draft we’ve seen in years.

If you had any doubt the Steelers were going to take a running back early in the upcoming NFL Draft, what transpired last week should have put that to rest.

This is the time of year, everyone with a pulse puts out a mock NFL draft. Some do more than one. I’ve got to admit, I do a bunch of them myself.

You can expect to see the Steelers back at Saint Vincent College at the end of July. Or at least that’s the hope of the team moving forward.

Considering the responses earlier this week, you would have thought people were taken by surprise by all of the losses the Steelers incurred in free agency.

Color a lot of NFL teams disappointed. They felt with the new TV deals nearly completed, the salary cap might come in quite a bit higher than the $180-million floor that had been adjusted a few weeks back, up from $175 million.

So now we know.

It’s been a busy week for the Steelers despite nothing really happening.

The world lost a great football coach this past week when Marty Schottenheimer died. It lost an even better person.

Over the course of the season, there have been a lot of doomsday predictions regarding the 2021 NFL salary cap.

You can expect Ben Roethlisberger to be the quarterback of the Steelers in 2021. Beyond that, it is probably not happening.

The Steelers caused something of an uproar locally when they announced the signing of former Washington quarterback Dwayne Haskins to a futures contract.

And in a snap, the Steelers’ season was over.

As the playoffs begin, the Steelers have one thing the majority of the AFC playoff field doesn’t have – a quarterback with plenty of playoff experience.

Did the Steelers figure something out at halftime of their 28-24 win over the Colts last week?

A lot of the focus on the Steelers’ issues over the past month or so have been on the team’s lack of a running game, and certainly that has been part of the problem.

You got the feeling after the Steelers’ 23-17 loss to Washington last Monday that there was a weight lifted off the shoulders of Mike Tomlin.

The Steelers were due for a stinker. I mean a real stinker.

“We’re not trying to go 16-0. We’re trying to win a Lombardi Trophy.”

Where’s the deep ball?

Mike Tomlin’s resume speaks for itself. He’s won a Super Bowl. He’s been to two. He’s never had a losing season in 14 years as the head coach of the Steelers, even last year when he had to be without Ben Roethlisberger for 14 games.

Dale Lolley covers the Steelers for DKPittsburghSports.com and writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.

If ever there has been a case and point for being careful what you ask for when it comes to free agency, then it is Le’Veon Bell.

So, we now know the outbreak of COVID-19 cases with the Tennessee Titans is looking like an inside job – as in the Titans largely doing this to themselves.

We knew that at some point this season there would be an NFL team that would have issues with a COVID-19 outbreak.

The Steelers have always been a team built around their blitz packages. But this season, they’re taking it to another level.

The first one is now out of the way, and now the Steelers will play their home opener Sunday against the Denver Broncos.

The Steelers couldn’t have hand-picked a better opponent than the Giants on a Monday night for their regular season opener.

The Steelers made it through training camp without a hint of controversy, major incident or injury. Considering it took place during a pandemic and a period of civil unrest, that’s noteworthy.

Because of players testing positive for COVID-19, Major League Baseball has had to shut down games every week since it started the season. That’s caused a lot of people to wonder how the NFL is going to get through a season, which is several months longer than what baseball is playing, witho…

The Steelers were supposed to have played their preseason opener last Thursday night in Canton, Ohio.

These are strange times in the world of sports. Heck, they are strange times in general, so sports are certainly no different.

NFL teams have until 4 p.m., Wednesday to work out extensions with their franchise-tagged players. If that doesn’t happen by that time, they cannot talk about a new contract until after the season ends.

Everyone is focusing on how strange it will be to not have fans in football stadiums this fall. The general feeling, thus far, has been that it will hurt defenses, who usually feed off the energy of the crowd, more than offenses.

John Harbaugh is right. The Baltimore Ravens head coach said during an interview with a Baltimore radio station that the NFL’s coronavirus protocol is “humanly impossible” to follow to a T.