Dave Dameshek

It's a healthcare and university town, meds and engines.

It's also a TV and movie town.

The Dark Knight, Mr. Rogers, The Pit, things of that nature.

And the QB of the 70s Steelers dynasty made movies with Burt Reynolds, recorded second-rate country music albums, wore a bad toupee, and was married to a figure skater.

Briefly.

I think the point of Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is, showbiz doesn't care if you're idiosyncratic as long as you're competent at your core.

You can be flaky, a margarita drunk, but you gotta show up with a flamethrower when it counts.

The hippies are the empty bad guys in the movie because they aren't trying.

They're just in the way.

Hollywood's got DiCaprio and Brad Pitt.

Pittsburgh's got Bradshaw.

And Yager, and Fats Holmes, and the Cobra, and Jeff Reed, and Doc Ellis, and also the Pirate Parrot.

Yeah, a rangy collection there.

But the point is, the color of Yin's collar don't matter.

It's getting the job done.

And sneaking into the first weekend of the playoffs for a cameo every year ain't getting it done no more.

Not with the Hall of Fame careers of Hayward and Watt winding down.

No one cares if Aaron Rodgers is a conspiracy theorist who lives in a cave.

They do care he's 43 and therefore unlikely to improve on a statistically mediocre 25.

Good enough for a team that claims to be in win-now mode?