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Tim Rooney, the nephew of Steelers founder Art Rooney Sr. and a long-time executive for the Steelers, Lions, and Giants has died. He was 84.

Via Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Rooney passed on Tuesday morning, after a short bout with cancer.

A coach at Villanova, Tim Rooney joined the Steelers in 1972, as one of four scouts. The others were Art Rooney Jr., Dick Haley and Bill Nunn. Tim Rooney served as director of pro scouting, where he scouted opponents and evaluated players already in the league.

Per Fittipaldo, Tim Rooney is often credited for the drafting of Hall of Fame linebacker Jack Lambert. It was Tim Rooney who took coach Chuck Noll to watch Lambert play at Kent State.

Tim Rooney stayed with the Steelers through 1979, the last of their four Super Bowl-winning seasons of the 1970s.

After spending time with the Lions, the Giants hired Tim Rooney in 1985 as director of pro personnel. He stayed in that role until 1999, before later returning in a part-time capacity. Which means he won at least six Super Bowl rings during his NFL career.

“He was a great guy,” Hall of Fame head coach Bill Parcells said of Tim Rooney, via Fittipaldo. “When you’re a head coach, you need someone to tell you the truth. Tim was our pro personnel guy, and that was his job. We had daily interaction every day talking about the roster. We had a lot of talks and became close. That enhanced our relationship. He understood me, and I understood him.”

We extend our condolences to Tim Rooney’s family, friends, and colleagues.


Two years ago, Quarterback on Netflix became the most pleasant surprise of the summer, an inside look at the 2022 seasons for Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota.

Then came the 2023 season. And no quarterbacks wanted to do it.

So, last year, Quarterback took a seat. Receiver replaced it. And it wasn’t nearly as good.

Now Quarterback is back. It debuted today on Netflix. It’s Joe Burrow, Jared Goff, and Kirk Cousins.

All three had very different experiences last season. Burrow played the best of the bunch, but his team fell short of the postseason (in part because the Bengals is the Bengals). Goff continued to play extremely well, but the No. 1 seed became a one-and-done postseason. And Cousins struggled to return to form after the Achilles injury that ended his 2023 season in Week 8, before being benched.

If there’s anything worth posting, we’ll share it. If you think that counts as a spoiler, look away when you see anything with “Quarterback” or “Netflix” in the headline.


Thursday’s #PFTPM including a simple question: “What are your thoughts on a potential Bills-Rams Super Bowl?”

My thoughts are it could happen, because both teams are firmly in the Super Bowl window.

In any given year, not many teams truly are. And while teams not apparently in the window can, in theory, win their way in, the salary-cap system has matured to the point where some teams have cracked the code — and some teams can’t crack their way out of a paper bag.

It also helps to have drafted and developed a franchise quarterback.

In most years, roughly 10 teams are in the window, roughly 10 teams aren’t, and the remaining 12 could break either way. This year, the AFC’s true short-list contenders are the Chiefs, Bills, Ravens, Bengals, and Texans. The Broncos and Chargers could force their way into the conversation.

In the NFC, it’s the Eagles, Lions, Rams, 49ers, and Commanders. Maybe the Buccaneers. Maybe the Vikings.

Again, things can and will change. That’s why they play the games, as someone once said. All the time.

For those who like a little variety, it would be nice for someone other than the Chiefs to get a turn in the Super Bowl. And for someone other than the Eagles, 49ers, or Rams to emerge from the NFC.

Since 2017, it’s been the Eagles three times, the 49ers twice, the Rams twice, and the Bucs once. For the AFC, it’s been only the Patriots, Chiefs, and Bengals.

That’s it. Over eight seasons, seven total franchises have taken the 16 total Super Bowl berths.

Free agency, the salary cap, and a draft process that rewards failure should be enough to mix things up. But the reality is that good teams stay good, and bad teams stay bad.


As Netflix inches toward potentially acquiring a full package of games, some of the streamer’s eventual competitors are reluctant to help the company produce quality content on Christmas.

According to FrontOfficeSports.com, ESPN and Fox are reluctant to loan talent to Netflix for the 2025 Christmas doubleheader.

Per the report, ESPN talent will not appear on the Cowboys-Commanders and Lions-Vikings games on December 25. Fox talent is not expected to participate.

Last year, Fox said no to a request to lend Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady to Netflix for Christmas. Eventually, the network allowed Greg Olsen to work one of the two games. ESPN allowed Laura Rutledge and Mina Kimes to work the Christmas games.

CBS produces the Netflix games, making CBS far more likely to allow its one-air talent to work the games. NBC’s Devin McCourty was involved in last year’s broadcast, too.

It’s unfortunate for the folks who would like to take on the extra work. Since the Christmas games are happening on days when the NFL isn’t otherwise playing, it’s not distracting them from their primary jobs.

And so it seems petty, frankly, for the networks to deny their employees the chance to spread their wings. It also becomes a bargaining point for future employment contracts, with talent seeking express permission as part of their deals to participate in one-off productions with other networks.


The Lions fell short of their goal last season, but safety Brian Branch believes their experience in 2024 sets them up well for success in 2025.

Branch made the Pro Bowl after playing in 16 regular season games and that availability made him an outlier on the team’s defense. Defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, linebacker Alex Anzalone, defensive tackle Alim McNeill and several other defensive players missed time with injuries that left the team scrambling to fill out the unit at times.

The group still played well enough for the Lions to earn the top seed and Branch said going through those tribulations has left the unit feeling more confident about the future.

“We went through the ups and downs,” Branch said to Rainer Sabin of the Detroit Free Press. “We fought together in tough games. We have been in a game where it depended on us to win. So, it just makes everybody buy in. Once you have a group that has bought in and has gone through trials and tribulations, we feel invincible.”

Branch said he feels “we’re better than last year” and the test of that will come when we find out if their stay in the playoffs lasts longer than one game this time around.


Nearly 20 years later, the events that clouded Reggie Bush’s entry to the NFL still resonate.

Via Ryan Kartje of the Los Angeles Times, a judge recently upheld an arbitration award requiring Bush to pay Lloyd Lake $1.4 million for defamation.

It was Lake’s alleged provision of benefits to Bush’s family that sparked a controversy that resulted in USC football being sanctioned and in Bush losing his Heisman Trophy. (He has since gotten it back.)

The timing of the story’s emergence also may have contributed to the Texans’ decision to pass on Bush with the first overall pick in the 2006 draft. He was picked by the Saints at No. 2.

He also played for the Lions, Dolphins, 49ers, and Bills in an 11-year NFL career.

Lake originally sued Bush in 2007. The case was settled in 2010. The second lawsuit flowed from allegations that Bush violated a non-disparagement clause in the settlement agreement. The agreement also contained a clause requiring future disputes to go to arbitration.

According to Kartje, Bush appeared on the I Am Athlete podcast in 2022 and accused Lake of blackmail and exaggerated Lake’s criminal record, saying it was “as long as the Cheesecake Factory menu.” Bush, per Kartje, also falsely accused Lake of being a convicted rapist.

The arbitrator ruled in Lake’s favor, awarding him $500,000, along with $764,640 in attorneys’ fees and $116,780 in other costs.

Bush has appeal rights. Typically, however, it’s very difficult to get a court to throw out the results of a private arbitration agreement. That’s mainly because courts love arbitration agreements; they reduce the load of cases that otherwise would have to be resolved by the court system.


Quarterback Sam Darnold’s lone season as Minnesota’s starter was magical, until it wasn’t.

At 14-2 and with one game in Detroit with the No. 1 seed on the line, Darnold’s chariot became pumpkinized. Then, in the wild-card round, the orange menace spread to the rest of the team.

“For lack of a better term, we laid an egg as an offense,” Darnold recently told Mike Silver of TheAthletic.com. “And I think, for me personally, that sucks. I felt like we were a really good team, but at the end of the day — and this is gonna sound a little pessimistic — but when you get to the end of it and you don’t win the whole thing, you failed.”

He’s right. There’s only one trophy. And the better a team performs in the regular season, the more prominent the failure seems when it happens.

“I feel like I could have played way better, to be completely honest with you,” Darnold said. “I feel I didn’t play up to my standard. I truly feel that way. I feel like if I would have just played better, I would’ve been able to give the team a chance.”

Darnold’s play was more conspicuous in Week 18, when the Vikings repeatedly had chances and Darnold repeatedly misfired. By the time the playoffs started, the Vikings were simply overmatched and overpowered.

So what happened in those two losses that turned a 14-2 start into an 0-2 finish?

“I feel like L.A. did very similar things on third down to what Detroit did to us,” Darnold said. “They played man and tried to play some ‘robber’ stuff, and that just gave us some troubles. It gave me some troubles, personally.”

As Darnold tries to learn from that experience, it sounds as if he’ll be more committed to running with the ball in 2025 if/when his options are stymied in the passing game.

“[Kevin O’Connell] and those guys in Minnesota did such a good job — and we do a great job here as well — of giving me answers if they take options away,” Darnold told Silver. “Like, just go through your progressions and work your feet and if it’s not there take off and run — because there’s no one accounting for the quarterback, unless they play a spy or whatever.”

Whatever happens in 2025, the gains Darnold made in the first 16 games of the 2024 season were undermined by the regressions of the final two. And even if he gets off to a great start again this year, the real question will be whether he shows up when the lights are the brightest and the stakes are the highest.


The squeaky wheel gets the grease. And the attention.

With so much focus on whether and when Micah Parsons, T.J. Watt, and Trey Hendrickson will get new deals from the Cowboys, Steelers, and Bengals, respectively, it’s easy to forget that Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson is due for a new deal, too.

But no one is talking about it, largely because Hutchinson isn’t talking about it. His press conference during the offseason program included no questions about his contract status — even though the Lions already have missed the window they’ve established in recent years for rewarding key players who became eligible for second contracts.

During draft week in 2024, the Lions gave market-level deals to receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown and tackle Penei Sewell. During draft week in 2025, the Lions gave a market-level deal to safety Kerby Joseph. For Hutchinson, it’s been crickets.

And while Hutchinson has two years remaining on his first-round rookie deal, Sewell got his second contract as a first-round pick with two years left.

The problem is the serious leg injury suffered by Hutchinson in 2024. The Lions presumably want to be sure he’ll be back to where he was before assuming the financial risk that he possibly won’t be. Hutchinson, in turn, should want his financial reward before assuming the risk of a new injury.

Delay will only make it more expensive for the Lions. The Parsons, Watt, and/or Hendrickson deals will push the floor higher and higher for Hutchinson. The fact that the Lions moved quickly with St. Brown, Sewell, and Joseph shows that they’re aware of the connection between time and money.

Through it all, Hutchinson isn’t saying anything. And that’s his prerogative. He’s from Detroit. He passes the exit for his high school on the way to work every day. He surely wants to stay with his hometown team.

But one of the sad realities of the NFL, and most businesses, is that a key employee’s true and genuine desire to stay can be used against the employee. They’ll lowball the employee. They’ll wait too long to realize they need to take care of the employee. And the employee who isn’t making a fuss quite possibly will wake up one day and decide to opt for different grass, regardless of whether it’s greener.

The CBA gives the Lions the upper hand. They hold his rights for two more years, and then they can apply the franchise tag for at least another two. Hutchinson’s willingness to go along goes a long way toward the team’s ability to have its cake and not pay it.


The Lions have announced their training camp schedule, with six practices fully open to the public and another four open to limited guests.

Detroit’s first open practice will be on Saturday, July 26, and will be open exclusively to Lions Loyal Members. The team’s practice on Monday, July 28, will be fully open to the public.

The Lions will also host the Dolphins for two joint practices on Wednesday, Aug. 13, and Thursday, Aug. 14. Both practices are slated to start at 10:30 a.m. Detroit will then host Houston for a joint practice on Thursday, Aug. 21 that begins at the same time.

While practice is free to attend, fans will need to register for tickets on the team’s website beginning July 15. All open practices will be held at the team’s facility in Allen Park.


A year ago, Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders announced that he had been through a health scare, but did not provide any details. Today Sanders revealed that he suffered a heart attack.

Sanders is now urging people to get a complete medical checkup to monitor their own heart health.

“Of all things, I don’t know why, that just never entered my mind,” Sanders told CBS Sports. “I’m learning through this process that there aren’t necessarily any warning signs, unless you do what we’re encouraging people to do, which is to go the doctor, get tested for LDLC levels, or bad cholesterol. That’s the only way to find out if you have high cholesterol. It’s not something you’re going to be able to feel. You don’t have to fit a certain physical profile.”

Sanders appears in a documentary, The Making of a Heart Attack, that airs Saturday on A&E.

“It’s really been an education, for me, learning about how frequent this happens all over the U.S.,” Sanders said. “Conversing with these other individuals who are part of this documentary who have very insightful, gripping stories about the journey that they’ve been on. It’s just really amazing. I think it will get a lot of people’s attention.”

An all-time great like Sanders discussing his health problems will definitely get people’s attention, and may save lives if it spurs more people to get the checkups that so many of us put off.