PTI - Are the Steelers Back to Being Good?!

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discuss the Steelers, Cooper Flagg, and the NBA Cup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Pardon the interruption, but I'm Mike Wilbon. It's our longtime substitute host, Dan Levertard's birthday, Tony. What makes Dan such a memorable fill in?

I'm Tony Kornheiser. Dan is always heading, steady, and sweating. Bam. Yeah, yeah, you know, he's, Dan, you know, he might not want to tell his age. I don't care. Exactly 10 years younger than me. So I know where Levertart is. He can't fake it.

You can't like shave years off. You know how big personalities like Levitard? They shave years off, you know, five years around. Oh, I don't think Dan's that way. Can't do. He better not. I don't think so. Dan was telling me that, you know, because he just graduated high school about 15 years ago.

Yeah. That's what he's telling me. I guess that's not really true. Welcome to PTI, boys and girls. In today's episode, Cooper Flair goes for 42. The Spurs and the Knicks play for the NBA Cup. And Jeff Saturday joins us for five good minutes. But we begin today with the Pittsburgh Steelers dominating the Miami Dolphins in sub-freezing weather in Pittsburgh, winning 28 to 15 last night.

Aaron Rogers led the Steelers to four straight touchdown drives in the second and third quarters, making the score 28 to 3. Rogers completed 23 of 27 passes, his highest one-game completion percentage since 2014. Just two weeks ago, Steelers fans were chanting fired Tomlin. Wilbon, how do things look now from Mike Tomlin and Aaron Rogers? Tony, they always look better after a win in the NFL. It's not like any other sport. You know, baseball is one 162. Hockey and basketball is one of 81.

No, football, you win a game. Everybody feels good for a little bit. Yep. Until the next week or until the next game, the next Thursday, Sunday, or Monday. And I watched that entire game last night. I haven't planned on it. But I'm like, okay, you know, Miami's got this rushing attack. They've won five out of six or whatever.

You know, they've gotten. themselves together. They may have saved their coach's job. Let's see what they do in Pittsburgh, and the answer was nothing. They didn't want to be out there. Nothing. You know, Miami and Tampa, whenever they go to somewhere and it's under 40, they got these records. That's right. They're old in 5,700. And then they looked like they were scared and didn't want to be there. So I don't know what it means. I mean, other folks can assign it some great meaning. I'm not. Pittsburgh's got tough games to end the season with his last three games. I'll wait for those.

Yeah, I'm going to just talk about Aaron Rogers for a second because it's easy to hate Aaron Rogers lately, but he is a Hall of Fame quarterback. I mean, he's, look, he was with the Jets. The Jets stink. Now he's with the Steelers. The Steelers do not stink. It's reflected in Aaron Rogers' play.

He didn't lose his skills. They didn't erode overnight. Aaron Rogers, at this point, his pass a rating this year, Mike, in 98.8. That's 11th in the league. 11 out of 32 is pretty good. And let's get to the Tomlin thing.

It was silly to say fired Tomlin. But to Mike Tomlin's credit, he took it very well. He said he understood it. He did not lash out at the fans. We understand the Steelers are not going to fire Mike Tomlin. Like, we get that. But we spent a lot of time on this show, Mike, talking about whether Tomlin maybe would think about moving somewhere else

and leaving that his time was done, is what Ben Rothelisberger advocated. Rothensberger turned that around last night. When before the game, he said, if Mike Tomlin wants to coach 10 more years in Pittsburgh, I'm good with that. And that kids is what we call a backpedal for Ben Rottlesberger. Absolutely.

Back. Yeah. And Pittsburgh was center stage because the game turned out to be eh. Eh. That's what it was. Let's turn to the NBA. Where Cooper Flagg last night came the youngest player to score at least 40. point in the game. Flagg, who turns 19 Sunday, finished with 42 in Dallas's overtime loss at Utah.

LeBron previously held a mark for most points as an 18-year-old at 37. Tone was Flagg's feet last night, a big deal, little deal, or no deal at all. I think to accurately answer that question, you almost have to give it a little time to be fair about it. If he turns out to be a great player like LeBron, we're going to be a great player. we're going to be able to say this is when it started. If he doesn't, maybe it becomes a curiosity at some point. And you have to consider there are very, very few players in the NBA ever who are 18 years old. In the first place.

Even the young ones enter, they enter at 19 or 20. And Cooper Flagg skipped a year in high school just so he could get to college. So with all of these caveats, I will say that it is at least a little deal. again, with a swirl around him, maybe it's a big deal. You know, I mean, I'll give you that, that maybe it's a big deal. The way I would deal with this question is to ask it this way. How many other rookies have had 42 points this year, regardless of their age? None.

And the answer is no one. So you have to give Cooper Flag a lot of credit here. He is a kid playing against grown men, and he went for 42. He's averaged almost 26 points his last seven games. This is why he was the overall number one pick, this. Yeah, this is not a surprise. Maybe the number 42 is. I'm going to admit, I didn't watch any of this game

because I was watching a much better game between Houston and Denver, which had some drama to it. I thought you were watching the football. You said you watched the football. You're the last person in America left with one TV, a nine-inch. Yeah, one-tree. Like Ralph Cramden and Ed Norton. You're the only guy doing that, Captain Video.

So, but, you know, Tony, I just, so Kobe could have done it, right? Maybe Moses Malone, although Moses might have been 19. I mean, for 100 years, you came in the league older. So I just don't see it as a big deal. I see Cooper Flag as a big deal. I see his maturation as a big deal. I see him getting out of that stupid point guard thing as a big deal. And I will watch Cooper Flag excitedly.

but 42 in and of itself, eh, eh, eh, not doing much for me. All right, let's stay with the NBA and discuss tonight's championship game in the NBA Cup, that in-season tournament that was invented three years ago. Tonight in Las Vegas, of all places, San Antonio will play the Knicks to see who takes home $530,000 per man. The loser gets $212,000. Well, on which team would this phony bologna tournament mean more to the Spurs or the Knicks? The Spurs.

No doubt the Spurs, Tony. And you know what, listen, you and I feel the same way about this whole thing, but younger players don't. And I covered the first one. I was there for it two years ago. I know exactly what younger players. I remember talking to Halliburton that night when the Pacers played. And no, it means a lot to the stars of those teams. And the Wimbunyama.

And it's a steal from soccer, but Wimbaboniyama grew up in Europe. He's French. It means everything. And so the Cup does, the competition. does, it does. And if the Knicks were to win this and hang a banner, I would make fun of you and everybody in New York, whoever cheered for the Knicks for the rest of time, they better not hang a banner in the world's most famous arena for this.

The Spurs is different. They're a kiddie team and they're hellacious. They are stalking everybody in the league. It would mean a lot to them. And I'm going to try to watch as much of this as I can. Yeah, good. You can watch for me. I'm not going to be watching because I don't even think it's on real TV. I think it's on streaming TV. And I'm not getting streaming just to watch this game. Look, it's an invented tournament. It is meaningless to me. It may be meaningful to other people, not to me. People sat around in the NBA offices and they said, let's have an in-season tournament because this is what soccer does. And the NBA looks at soccer's global draw and says, this is what we want. Let's put this tournament at the beginning of the season, maybe create a buzz because we're going to get crushed by the NFL. Let's see if we can focus on us.

We'll put it out there. This is who we are. Will you watch us? And it's fine. It's fine if you want to watch it. The winner will be forgotten by Friday. I'll take exception to what you're saying about the Knicks. They haven't won anything, anything in 52 years.

They got a lot of rafter space. And if they win this, they ought to hang up a gigantic banner. You want a banner? And just say, 2020. NBA Cup. Remember where you were when we won it and we ruled the NBA. As the Knicks guy, you want this? A thing you won't even watch.

You want that hanging from the rest of us? I don't, but I could see the Knicks wanting it until enough people stood up and said, get that out of here. That'll be tomorrow. We won two real titles. Let's take a break. Coming up, what could Philip Rivers face against the Niners

that he did not against the Seahawks, we will ask Jeff Saturday. They better not hang that. We'll also ask him how deeply felt for the Packers. Michael Parsons' loss is and will be. The Lakers hung the banner. They shouldn't hang one either. And they don't play in the world's most famous arena. You are watching, Part of the Interruption, presented by Gray Goose, part of Happy Hour. We've got NFL questions for our great friend ESPN NFL analyst Jeff Saturday.

We got to start with Philip Rivers, and I'll just add parenthetically, I was amazed at Philip Rivers' performance. I really was. If you were blocking for Philip Rivers, are there things you'd be concerned about that the 49ers could do this week that maybe the Seahawks did not do after a week of watching film on this guy? Yeah, great, great question. I would say press the line of scrimmage, right? get tighter understanding. When you looked at it, really most of the passes he threw were coming

out pretty quick and they're pretty short from a, you know, a catch and go run. And so to get him to hold the ball longer, you know, how do you change your coverages up so that he has to sit in the pocket, you adjust his timing like his footwork, because patience is probably the hardest thing for a guy who hadn't been hitting a long time to, you know, kind of, he gets that itch of wanting to let the ball go. And I would say that would be kind of thing. Once teams zone in on how far they think you're willing to push the ball down the field, they will creep up and make it very difficult. At some point, Rivers will have to take kind of the belt off, right? The training wheels off of him coming back and let that thing rip a few times because you're going to have to back those guys

off and not let pressure get to you because as an offensive lineman, you know he's a sitting duck. You're going to protect like crazy. But at some point, know where he is and the ball's got to come out. So that would be the only thing that I would say teams will begin to adjust on. Let's go to a quarterback who's 14 years younger, Patrick Mahomes, and Jeff asked you, if you were one of Mahomes' teammates, how uncertain would the future feel right now? Not at all. Listen, I'm going to tell you, Patrick Mahomes, this is just a retooling, in my opinion, right? Like where the chiefs are, the chiefs are, the chiefs. Chiefs have rested on Patrick Mahomes. And in all due respect, it worked, right? I mean,

how many Super Bowls has the guy gone to, right? You won three. Like, it's worked. Like, you can't blame them, but you saw this year there was way too much reliance on, you know, Mahomes, save us type thing. And unfortunately, they had, they had drops, whether it was Rice or worthy or Kelsey at times. They didn't run it very well. Their offensive line got banged up. There are a lot of pieces of the point. They need to kind of have, if you remember a few years ago when they brought in like Humphrey and Smith and Bolton and they got McDuffie, right? And they got juiced up a little bit, right? Young, energetic, all made impacts.

They need another one of those kind of draft classes where they're developing guys for, for, Mahomes can carry it. But it can't only be one guy and they just got got caught. And even Andy Reed and Nagy, it was a little stale. Like if you look at all, you know, you look at Ben Johnson and Liam Cohen and McVeigh, like their offenses are a little more, you know, they're doing a little more than any, which you would have never thought. So I think this invigorates that Chief's team. I think he'll start a new phase and no real worry. Once he gets passed, obviously, the rehab portion of the surgery, what's nine months or whatever that is, I think I would feel completely comfortable with Alma Holmes will attack the next part of his career. All right, that's enough quarterback talk. We've got to get to. to some defense talk here, particularly for those of us who will be in Soldier Field watching Bears Packers on Saturday night. I was fascinated when you compared Micah Parsons this morning on Get Up to a quarterback and his importance to a quarterback. Jack, can you elaborate on that? No, absolutely. You think about, okay, so let me put this in perspective. He's had 64

quarterback pressures this year, or that was kind of the running total. The next highest on his team right now has 28, Roshan Gary. Okay, so just think about that discrepancy. And now think about every player on your defense plays and has predictions based on him getting that pressure, right? Like defensive backs can see when there's no chip help or there's no tight end on his side or they don't feel like they're going to slide his way. They know ball's coming out quick. I'm going to climb up a little bit and play this tighter, or I'm going to play inside leverage, right? Like, defenses worked together, and he was the quarterback of it. Everything came off of what can Micah Parsons do for the defense that everybody else can kind of take note.

He multiplies, right? It's a force multiplier. He understood that by him playing well, everybody else could play well around him. That is a massive loss, and it is equal to losing a quarterback on offense. This was a massive loss for the Packers. And listen, people are bashing me because I said it's going to affect their Super Bowl chances. It will. They brought him in for a reason, Mike, like you and I both, they had this defense before that was close to being in a top five or top 10, whatever it was.

That wasn't good enough. You want to win the Super Bowl. You need a closer. He is the closer. Unfortunately, they lose a man for all of us because I wanted to see it in the playoffs. And unfortunately, we're not going to be able to see it for at least another year. This is very interesting that you would say that was a massive loss. You've said that all year.

You've said that only one other time about Lane Johnson. You said that was a massive loss. This is only the second time. We will get you out of here on this. It's easy to see how the cold affects receivers and quarterbacks. It's harder to catch the ball. It's harder to throw the ball. It's harder to grip the ball in the cold.

The position you play, offensive linemen, does the cold affect offensive linemen and defensive linemen at all? Oh, yeah. especially the ends, they get a little worried about their hands, you know, your face mask hits the hand, or you, you know, you trap them down and slap them down, their head hits that dirt. It's a lot harder when it's cold than when it's warm. But nobody likes to get beat around when it's 17 degrees out there, right? So as an offensive lineman, I always thought it was our advantage, you know, because we know where we're going.

Hopefully we get there a split second ahead, and oftentimes we're double teaming a guy, right? So you're trying to finish and make sure you're laying the hat on of a little extra, making sure if you can, if you see his fingers near a pile, maybe slides your cleat over it a little bit, you know, just make them think about that cold and that pain. Because that's the, that's the joy and the beauty of that O-line D-Line battle, man. And listen, they do the same. Don't let them church it up. I ain't going to let them.

They would do it to me. I'm sitting down. I took a lot of shots underneath those piles. So I don't feel bad for them either. It's just all part of it. Jeff, that's great to have you, Jeff. As always, thank you so much. Appreciate you.

I love you, fellas. Have a great one. Let's take one last break. Still to come, Arch Manning appears to have made a decision about his future. And the Clippers. Oh, the Clippers. Continue their swooned. Season long.

Can't get up. Yeah, they stink. Falling and they can't get up. By the way, how about that expression Jeff just used to church it up? That's a great expression. That's awesome. Part of the interruption is presented by Great Goose. Make Time Wait.

Please enjoy responsibly. Part of Happy Hour. Happy time, people. Happy 43rd birthday Antrell Roll. The NFL DB is one of those infrequent players to have won an NCAA championship in college and a Super Bowl in the pros. Roll one in college at the U in 2001.

Then it was on the Giants Super Bowl winners in 2011. Role played 11 seasons in the NFL, five with the Giants, five with the Cardinals, one with your bears, Mike. He made three Pro Bowl's. Pro Football reference says Role is a cousin to Chad Ochosinko Johnson and to Myron and Samarri Role. Myron is best known from being a Rhodes Scholar after playing at Florida State and is now a neurosurgeon. Samari Role once made the Pro Bowl as a DB with the Titans. Don't you remember Myron visiting us here when he was a rising road scholar? We can't keep an eye on this kid. He and Chad Ochosenko.

That must be really cool at like Thanksgiving if you get the zip between the two of them. Happy anniversary Drew Breeze on this day six years ago. The Saints quarterback had arguably the best game of his 20-year career. Breeze completed 28 of 29 pass attempts, setting a single game record for quarterbacks with over 20 attempts, percentage of 96.7. In Breeze's 20th straight completion,

He threw his 540th career touchdown pass to break Peyton Manning's NFL record. Tom Brady has since surpassed them both. Breeze finished the game with 304 yards, four touchdowns, 34-7 win over the Colts. This past Sunday, the Saints rookie quarterback Tyler Shuck, set a franchise record for most passing yards in a season by a rookie. And Chump did this in only the sixth game he has started. And how much you liked seeing Drew Brie's play in New Orleans I did too?

Is it possible he's still underrated as great? Great EZ, his Hall of Fame career that he had. Isn't it possible? People talk about all these other folks with more flowery language. They don't do that with Drew Brees. He's a great quarterback. Yes.

He's great. Happy trails to the NFL draft for Arch Manning. Manning's father, Cooper, told ESPN that Arch will return for his fourth season at Texas in 2006. Peyton and Eli's nephew has had a down-and-up year. The red-shirt sophomore through five interceptions in his first five games,

two of which were losses at Ohio State in Florida. But he's only thrown two picks over his last seven games. On the season, he's thrown for 24 touchdowns and run for another eight. The Longhorns also lost at Georgia this year, but ended the regular season on a high note, upsetting undefeated rival Texas A&M. Wolbon, what do you make of this decision? Senior year could and should be the high note. I hope he's a great senior year.

I'm a root like hell for him. Me too. Let's go to the big finish. Let's do it. Rockets coach E. Mayo Doca. Besides the refs after Houston's overtime lost to Denver with good reason. I noticed Yoke just seeing Goon going for triple doubles, but I didn't notice the rest, which is usually a good sign. I did.

Unseated Washington won the NCAA soccer championship in overtime. I know you're impressed. Very impressed. They did it five miles. They beat NC State. Five miles from the NC State campus. Very impressed. Blackhawks say Connor Bedard is out with a shoulder injury until at least in New Year.

Your thoughts. Fourth and points. fifth in gold. The kid's starting to become great, and now he's going to be out for a bit. Sidney Crosby and the Penguins, host Connor McDavid and the Oilers tonight. You're intrigued? Yes, because I found out it's on real TV, not this streaming stuff. Real TV. Last one, the Clippers have lost 18 or 21. Can you defend them? I can't, I can't defend them. What are you talking about? You're such a fraud. You have, you have streaming in your home already. You watch the Thursday night game. Not like you have.

the same channel. Not like you have it. You got three TVs all stream. I have one small stream. We're out of time. Trying to better the next time. I'm Tony Corny. I'm Mike Wilburne. I'm Mike Wilburne. Same time to borrow.