Tim Benz stories, Page 146

For Friday’s “First Call,” you can watch Antonio Brown turn himself in as he goes to jail. Maybe the Steelers should pay attention to a small conference tight end who is emerging at the Senior Bowl. Pitt and Duquesne hit the road in college hoops. Robert Morris has a big...

After four-and-a-half decades in Pittsburgh sports media, Stan Savran has done it all. Yes, yes. Even this podcast. Twice now! In honor of Savran’s 45th anniversary on the air in our city, he joined me to discuss some of his many memories of covering sports in the Western Pennsylvania market....

On Wednesday, I got this text from someone who covers another NFL team besides the Steelers. He was at the Senior Bowl practices in Mobile, Ala. “(Mike) Tomlin is standing right here watching quarterbacks pretty closely.” Sure. I admit it. Upon reading that, my brain went places for a cheap...

A break for the Pittsburgh Penguins means a break for our hockey beat writer Seth Rorabaugh. But not before we get one more podcast out of him prior to the All Star game. While the rest of hockey returns on Monday, the Penguins don’t come back until Jan. 31. And...

How are we going to start this week’s “U mad, bro?” With me being mad. That’s how. I was mad because I got locked out of my email. My stupid password expired. Why do they make me update that thing so often?! So I couldn’t get to my usual material...

That didn’t go as hoped. Aside from the obvious goal of grabbing two points against the Philadelphia Flyers in their last game before a 10-day break, the Penguins had some other items on their agenda. “We want to put a full game together,” captain Sidney Crosby said after Sunday’s exciting...

In Wednesday’s “First Call”: J.J. Watt to host SNL. Chris Archer fires at the Houston Astros. A major basketball brawl. A new home for Todd Graham. Live! From New York … How big of a personality is Houston Texans star J.J. Watt? Big enough to host “Saturday Night Live” on...

It’s a big night for Western Pennsylvania college basketball on Wednesday. Pitt plays host to Boston College at 9 p.m. Duquesne visits Rhode Island at 7 p.m. And Penn State visits Michigan at 7 p.m. So we turn to college basketball expert Mike DeCourcy from The Sporting News and the...

The Steelers don’t have a first-round draft choice this year. No, Minkah Fitzpatrick doesn’t count. Again. So will they try to fill some holes via free agency instead? We should hope. My colleagues at USA Today’s Steelers Wire listed a few potential candidates. Let’s see which ones make sense. Teddy...

At the end of the NFL regular season, if you did a Twitter search of Bill Callahan’s name, you got a ton of people suggesting the Steelers should hire him as a special assistant to help coach the offensive line. Or just get him to flat-out replace Shaun Sarrett. The...

It’s our usual Tuesday hockey podcast with Brian Metzer of the Penguins Radio Network. And by usual, I mean typically unusual. Eventually we get to hockey, after much more pressing debates about Godzilla movies, baby Jabba versus baby Yoda, and Led Zeppelin covers. Following all those important topics, we get...

This week’s “Madden Monday” with Mark Madden features three big topics: • The Penguins comeback win Sunday against the Boston Bruins • The AFC and NFC championship games • The Houston Astros cheating controversy We start with the Penguins. How big of a deal is it that they got at...

Normally, Pittsburgh’s obsession with losing to teams from New England is focused on the football field. This week, it bled onto the hockey rink, too. Whatever success the Penguins seemed to spin against the rest of the league this season, it had failed to manifest against the Boston Bruins. The...

For the past week, the news cycle surrounding the Houston Astros sign-stealing controversy has been constant. And so has the bloodletting. Manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow have been fired. Because they were formerly members of the Astros, Red Sox manager Alex Cora and Mets manager Carlos Beltran...

The odds to win the Super Bowl in 2021 are out. And it appears the oddsmakers have a lot of faith in Ben Roethlisberger making a healthy return. Let me rephrase. The oddsmakers seem to have a lot of faith in Steelers fans having a lot of faith in Ben...

Many debates have popped up this week over who should — and shouldn’t — get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a result of the 2020 “Centennial Slate.” I default to one self-reflective question: “What makes me more angry? Borderline guy who gets in? Or those who are...

A former WPIAL baseball star is speaking out about the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal. He was a first-hand witness to it and was prominently featured in the exposure of it. I spoke with Seneca Valley alum and former Pitt quarterback Kevan Smith on Thursday. You can hear the entire conversation...

Duquesne’s hot start to 2019-20 has started to bring some national attention. At 14-2 (4-0 Atlantic 10), the Dukes received nine AP Top 25 votes this week. Also, ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi isn’t ruling out a potential at-large NCAA tournament bid, if Duquesne wins its fair share of road games...

In “U mad, bro?” this week, readers pop off about James Conner, they defend Tony Romo’s money, they rip Bill Cowher’s Hall of Fame induction, and they go hard against me. Well, not so much me. Just this weekly column. Eh, no. It’s me. It’s definitely me. The “RefofPttsburgh” sent...

In this week’s hockey podcast, Penguins Radio Network host Brian Metzer and I tell you how to “take care of y’all mentals” during this stressful stretch of hockey. The Penguins are going to shove five more games onto the calendar between now and their 10-day break which starts on Jan....

The 14-2 Duquesne basketball team received nine votes in this week’s AP Top 25 poll. That may not sound like a lot. But it is miles away from where this program was when Keith Dambrot took over as head coach after a 10-22 campaign in 2016-17. The Dukes look to...

A report from Front Office Sports states that ESPN is preparing to offer CBS NFL analyst Tony Romo somewhere between $10-$14 million annually. Let’s split the difference and say it’s $12 million. If Romo were to sign that deal, he’d make more cash in 2020 as a broadcaster than: •...

In this week’s “Madden Monday,” Mark Madden is playing hurt. Why should he be different than anyone else in the Pittsburgh sports scene? Mark is really sick. But he joins us anyway for this week’s podcast. Kinda like the Penguins, right? Everyone is injured. But they are managing to win....