A Steelers Depot daily segment. A quick hit of some Pittsburgh Steelers-related stories that may not require a complete article but nuggets worth mentioning and passing on to you guys.
Your Depot After Dark for Jan 11.
PFF DPOY
Pro Football Focus has selected Cleveland Browns DE Myles Garrett as its Defensive Player of the Year. I hope you were sitting down for that news. In fact, T.J. Watt wasn’t even part of the site’s Honorable Mentions or Best Pass Rusher, losing out to Garrett, Dallas’ Micah Parsons, and New York Giants’ Dexter Lawrence.
No Steelers made PFF’s list of winners or honorable mentions, not even Miles Killebrew for the special teams category. For the year, Watt graded out as the NFL’s fourth-best EDGE player overall and the fifth-best pass rusher.
Weather Update
The forecast for Sunday’s Wild Card game is looking more treacherous by the day. According to this latest update, snow off Lake Erie will be in the Buffalo area during the game with wind gusts up to 40 miles per hour. It should put wind chills in the single digits or around zero by the time this game gets underway.
Steelers Pep Rally
The city of Pittsburgh will hold a pep rally for the Steelers before they depart Saturday to Buffalo for Sunday’s AFC Wild Card game.
From KDKA:
“At noon on Friday at the City-County Building, there will be a Steelers pep rally including Mayor Ed Gainey, County Executive Sara Innamorato, and the Steelers.”
The Steelers are back in the playoffs for the first time in two years, searching for their first playoff victory since 2016 and ending their postseason drought. The Steelers and Bills kick off Sunday at 1 PM/EST.
ESPN Scandal
It’s not Steelers-related, but it’s one of the big sports stories of the day not involving someone’s (former) head coach.ESPN was discovered to be part of a decades-long scandal of submitting fake names on behalf of ESPN personalities for the yearly Sports Emmys.
Because personalities could only win one award, producers and those responsible for submitting names to the Emmys would change names, like Chris Fowler to “Chris Fulton,” win the award, and then change the nameplate to Fowler. Reportedly, the personalities weren’t aware they were given fraudulent trophies. As written by The Athletic and shared via Awful Announcing, ESPN admitted the fraud and apologized.
“Some members of our team were clearly wrong in submitting certain names that may go back to 1997 in Emmy categories where they were not eligible for recognition or statuettes. This was a misguided attempt to recognize on-air individuals who were important members of our production team. Once current leadership was made aware, we apologized to NATAS for violating guidelines and worked closely with them to completely overhaul our submission process to safeguard against anything like this happening again.”
All fraudulent trophies were returned back to the NATAS, though that doesn’t make up for the dozens of people robbed of winning over the years. It’s the latest line in a week of bad PR for ESPN.
