Mark Madden stories, Page 8

As the Pittsburgh Penguins continue to nose-dive, even searching for solutions is problematic. There’s a lot the Penguins won’t do. The Penguins won’t make a coaching change. Because Mike Sullivan is their Bill Belichick, according to owners Fenway Sports Group. Except this Belichick didn’t wait to lose Tom Brady before...

The Penguins are already in deep trouble. Not just because they’re 3-6-1 after losing four straight games in Western Canada. But because they look utterly impotent and disorganized, with the same old problems cropping up game after game: Blowing leads, conceding goals in quick succession, giving goals right back, allowing...

The use of replay review in sports is invariably a hot topic. It gets the calls right. Usually. It slows down the game. Always. In the end, for me, replay review doesn’t quite connect. In the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s NFL game, Minnesota Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold got blatantly...

Knickers got twisted when Penn State football coach James Franklin did the hokey-pokey on and off the podium at his weekly news conference by way of declining to comment on two ex-Nittany Lions players charged with rape. A PR flack exchanged places with Franklin and recited a prepared statement. The...

After the Pittsburgh Penguins lost at home to Carolina last Friday, coach Mike Sullivan and center Lars Eller bemoaned what they considered a subpar effort. There was nothing exceptionally wrong with the effort. The Penguins are slow. The Penguins aren’t slumping. They’re bad. You would have to be delusional not...

It’s been so long since the Pittsburgh Steelers had a real quarterback, we forgot what one looked like. It’s been so long since the Steelers had a real offense, we forgot what that looked like. Justin Fields did OK deputizing. He went 4-2. He’s no Mike Kruczek, but you couldn’t...

I occasionally go on Twitter/X and remind the citizens that T.J. Watt has never won a playoff game. That doesn’t mean he’s not one of the best defensive players of his generation. I just like watching the carp thrash after the bread. But Watt never winning a playoff game isn’t...

One shot, one goal. Two shots, two goals. Five shots, three goals. (With the third goal coming 32 seconds after the Penguins had scored to cut their deficit to 2-1.) Pulling goalie Tristan Jarry after Buffalo’s third goal Wednesday was an easy decision. He looked lazy and disengaged. More significantly,...

The presumed quarterback switch from Justin Fields to Russell Wilson shouldn’t be judged by whether the Pittsburgh Steelers win Sunday night’s home game vs. the New York Jets. But it will be. Certainly, the Steelers need to win by way of avoiding descent into the NFL’s mushy middle. But there...

Justin Fields is good enough to beat Las Vegas because you can throw for just 145 yards and still do that. The Raiders stink. Can Fields, performing like he is, defeat the better teams coming up on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ schedule? Can Fields win AFC North games? Can he beat...

Anybody with half a brain and a remote sense of reality should shelve talk that the Pittsburgh Steelers should trade for Las Vegas wide receiver Davante Adams or any wideout that gets a big paycheck and would cost the Steelers significant draft capital in return. Be glad, too, that the...

The Pittsburgh Steelers have a tradition of winning Super Bowls. It’s getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. They also have a tradition of crackpot wide receivers. That custom is alive and well. George Pickens is at the front of that line. The Steelers have no legit gripe. They...

The Pittsburgh Penguins will either just miss or just make the playoffs, just like the last two seasons. They will go an eighth straight year without winning a playoff series. That’s what happens when you keep bringing back basically the same team and same approach. The Penguins have slowed but...

The Steelers are going nowhere. Their offense isn’t good. Their quarterback isn’t good. Their defense is very good but can’t always overcome the offense’s shortcomings. Sunday night’s 20-17 home loss to Dallas proved all of the above. The Steelers won the turnover battle, 3-0. (The fumble the Steelers lost trying...

The Pittsburgh Pirates added MLB’s best pitcher and another good hurler this season. Their best offensive talent was healthy after playing just nine games in 2023 because he didn’t know how to slide. (Probably still doesn’t.) Yet somehow the Pirates managed to finish with the same rotten record (76-86) as...

The Pittsburgh Steelers defense is following a familiar path this season: second-best in points conceded, fourth-best in yardage allowed but still not quite as good as it should be, or as good as its status as the NFL’s top-paid defensive unit dictates. Exhibit A: Last Sunday’s 27-24 loss at meh...

The Pittsburgh Penguins are an old team. Their stars are old. It depends on who makes the team, but the Penguins’ roster likely will have the NHL’s oldest average age. You can’t reach unrestricted free agency in the NHL unless you have seven years of service or are 27 years...

The national media bleats endlessly about Mike Tomlin’s status as one of the NFL’s premier coaches. As I write this, he’s likely getting credit for the Steelers coming back from a 17-0 deficit to have a chance to beat Indianapolis at the death: “A Tomlin team never quits.” But that...

The A’s played their last-ever game in Oakland on Thursday. Oakland Coliseum was packed: 46,889 creating an atmosphere both celebratory and (mostly) funereal. It was sad. But the A’s will finish dead last in MLB attendance. Under a million. They also finished last in 2023 and ‘22. Second-last in 2021....

LAS VEGAS — Behold, refreshing sports notes! Jotted down on a bedside notepad between blackjack sessions at The D on Fremont Street. Read ’em twice. Double down. • J.J. Watt saying that brother T.J. doesn’t get the recognition he deserves puts the “duh” in dumb. T.J. is universally praised, has...

Cutting Rowdy Tellez and Michael A. Taylor in the season’s final week is par for the Pirates’ course, not least because it saves them a measly $200,000 bonus that was due Tellez had he batted four more times. Bad PR and clubhouse discontent be damned, the Pirates are run for...

The Steelers are 3-0. But anybody who says they have a clear vision of what the Steelers are is fooling themself. Anybody who says they’re sure who the quarterback should be is also fooling themself. After three games, little is certain about the Steelers. Justin Fields played his first legit...

Did Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers post the greatest single-game performance in MLB history at Miami this past Thursday? Probably. It’s hard to come up with any offensive output that matches 6 for 6, three home runs, two doubles, 17 total bases, 10 RBIs, four runs and two...

Pittsburgh Penguins training camp has opened. They narrowly missed the playoffs in each of the last two seasons and haven’t won a playoff series since 2018. Their expectations are hardly illuminating. The Penguins figure to be on the fringe of contention for the postseason, with a precipitous drop more likely...

Broderick Jones is a mess. Most of the blame lies with the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers traded up to take Jones with the 14th pick of last year’s NFL Draft. He was supposed to be their franchise left tackle. Jones started 11 games as a rookie, all at right tackle....