On Sports: Penguins’ Bryan Rust earns Olympic look; Cam Heyward chats with Aaron Rodgers on podcast

An all-American honor for four NHL players with local ties, a lovefest for Aaron Rodgers from a pair of his new teammates and a Pittsburgh Steelers opponent for 2025 names its starting quarterback.

All that and more on the Wednesday edition of On Sports:

Team USA hopefuls

On the heels of his first 30-goal season, Penguins winger Bryan Rust is one of 44 American players invited to attend the U.S. Men’s Olympic Orientation Camp next week in Plymouth, Mich.

Rust, 33, is entering his 12th pro season — all with the Penguins. He has had at least 20 goals in each of the past six seasons, capped by a career-most 31 in 71 games in 2024-25.

Twenty-four NHL teams have at least one representative at the camp. Though Rust is the only one from the Penguins, three natives of the Pittsburgh area also will be there: the Utah Mammoth’s Logan Cooley (West Mifflin) and the New York Rangers’ J.T. Miller (Coraopolis by way of East Palestine) and Vince Trocheck (Upper St. Clair).

Bryan Rust is headed to Team USA's Olympic Orientation Camp! ????

Rust is one of only five Americans, and 19 players overall, to have six or more 20-goal seasons since 2019-20. https://t.co/2Z65hbGQ7X pic.twitter.com/XBEuUEzhA9

— Penguins PR (@PenguinsPR) August 19, 2025

The orientation camp is an early step in USA Hockey selecting its roster for this coming February’s Olympics in Italy. According a release announcing the camp, “the gathering is largely an administrative and team-building event and includes no formal on-ice activity or public component.”

Six players are already guaranteed spots on the team: Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews, Brady Tkachuk, Matthew Tkachuk, Quinn Hughes and Charlie McAvoy.

Among the 38 other attendees at the camp, 19 will be picked for the roster sent to Italy.

Cam says he’s sorry

In 2025, when a sports team’s longtime captain has a podcast, if a high-profile new player or two join that team, it is only a matter of time before he/they are invited guests on it.

For the “Not Just Football With Cam Heyward” episode released Tuesday, Aaron Rodgers and DK Metcalf were alongside Heyward. The big-name duo were arguably the Steelers’ most notable acquisitions of the offseason.

As transcribed by Steelers Now, Heyward took advantage of the opportunity to offer a public apology for the apparent public affront he’d directed toward Rodgers five months ago — yes, also on “Not Just Football.”

“Either you want to be a Pittsburgh Steeler, or you don’t. It’s that simple. That’s the pitch,” Heyward said at that point, when Rodgers kept the football world in limbo about whether he would play in 2025 and for whom.

“I have to apologize,” Heyward said to Rodgers in this week’s episode. “I guess my words were taken out of context when I said, ‘Do you want to be a Pittsburgh Steeler or not?’ How did you feel about that?”

(Put aside that Heyward claims that he was taken out of context … on his own podcast … that he released himself).

Rodgers replied to Heyward, seemingly joking: “I was hurt. You didn’t reach out. You just wanted to make a statement in the media. You had a preconceived notion of who I was, obviously. And how has that changed over the last few months?”

Heyward responded: “It’s been good, I would say. You came to my cookout. You came to my golf outing. I appreciate that.”

More sports

• 'That's what they look like': No. 1 prospect Konnor Griffin impresses in Double-A debut
• Mike Tomlin 'comfortable' with Aaron Rodgers sitting out entire Steelers preseason
• Steelers notes: Cam Heyward practices … does 'hold in' persist?

More flowers for Aaron

While Rodgers was one part tongue-in-cheek, one part making a point about his public reputation as espoused by the media, Metcalf seemed to imply that he too had bought into some of the negativity surrounding Rodgers from afar nationally.

“It’s great,” Metcalf said of having Rodgers as his quarterback, as transcribed by Yardbarker. “I will say it’s been a fun journey just to get to know him as a person off the field. I mean, the guy gets a lot of (crap) for no reason in my eyes. He’s been nothing but nice.”

TV stars

Already part of five “stand-alone” television windows for games this season, now even the 10 Steelers games scheduled for Sunday afternoons on CBS might be getting some marquee treatment.

During an interview with one of the network’s in-house platforms, CBS No. 1 play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz speculated that he and No. 1 analyst Tony Romo could get assigned to as many as six Steelers games over a seven-week stretch during the second half of the season.

Jim Nantz believes the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to have a big season with Aaron Rodgers behind center.

Watch the full "Beyond the Booth" interview with @MooseOnAir featuring Jim Nantz and Tony Romo on the CBS Sports YouTube channel.https://t.co/PQoSGuDdBI pic.twitter.com/VF4cjdgBET

— NFL on CBS ???? (@NFLonCBS) August 18, 2025

“Just looking at our schedule … it’s very Pittsburgh back-heavy at the end of the year. That’s important to us,” Nantz said. “Can the Aaron Rodgers signing, I think it’s going to work out. I think Aaron, I know this is like, the momentum, I’m going against the popular viewpoint of what happened with the Jets. It was better than people gave him credit for, by a lot.

“There’s a chance at the end of the year — if they’re good, because we can always switch out of it — the way the schedule was handed out to us, we could have the Steelers, come late November, six out of seven weeks. That includes games against Chicago. … We have a game against Detroit, national doubleheader game. Got a Pittsburgh-Baltimore game. There are other ones in that mix. We could see Pittsburgh a lot if they’re good. So that’s the biggest question I have — is it going to work? As we’re sitting here today, I believe it’s going to work.”

‘Dime’ for your thoughts

The Indianapolis Colts on Tuesday named Daniel Jones as their starting quarterback. Head coach Shane Steichen went so far as to say of Jones, “He’s our starter for the season.” That’s a blow to Anthony Richardson, who was the No. 4 overall pick of the draft just two years ago.

T.J. WATT STRIP SACK ON DANIEL JONES ‼️

(via @Steelers) pic.twitter.com/IxLfg5cshO

— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) October 29, 2024

The news is relevant to the Steelers because they play the Colts in Week 9 (Nov. 2 at Acrisure Stadium). A starter for almost six seasons with the New York Giants, Jones is 0-2 in his career against the Steelers.

In defeats in the 2020 season opener and Oct. 28 of last season, Jones had an aggregate 76.1 passer rating (below his career average of 84.3), two touchdown passes and three interceptions while enduring seven sacks.