Hey yinz fellow Pittsburghers and Pittsburgh fans, my name is Jarred Vasinko (left in the picture). I grew up in the small town of Latrobe, home of Steelers training camp, and was raised to bleed black and gold. This blog is for me to share my Pittsburgh pride with you, keeping you up to date on weekly scores, stats, news, and all things Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates. Warning: I am by no means a sports analyst (so bear with me), I just love sports.

I’ll start us off with a quick Pirates report. As the regular season wraps up and teams are preparing for playoffs, we Pittsburghers are once again left in the dust, preparing to lower the Jolly Rodger. The Pirates had a good run in the recent Cincinnati series, winning 2 of 3, also winning the first two of the cubs series (with help from Arrietta leaving with a leg injury). Despite this recent upswing, the Pirates are still 6 games behind .500 and 9.5 games behind the division leading Cubs, so our playoff chances are looking rough. Sorry to break the news.

With the bad news out of the way, tis the season to be jolly, for football is back. Time to dust off the terrible towels and unhang that number seven jersey. The pains of last season’s AFC final are behind us and, with a promising off and preseason, we can look into this season with optimism.

This offseason has been a roller coaster of emotions for us. Between the failed negotiations with Le’Veon Bell and the delayed reinstation of Martavis Bryant, us Steeler fans were hanging on edge. However, everything seems to have panned out. Bryant has been fully reinstated, adding much-needed depth to the receiving core beyond Antonio Brown. Also, Bell has finally signed his franchise tag worth $12.1 million and returned with the team after missing all of August. Both players are healthy and ready for week 1.

Preseason wrapped up last week with a 17-14 victory over the Carolina Panthers. That leaves the Steelers with a preseason record of 3-1, with wins over Carolina, Atlanta, and the Giants and the only loss to Indianapolis. To me however, preseason is no indicator of the season to come as it is just the time for coaches to figure out their backups and who they can rely on in the future.

With preseason over, it’s time for the real fun to begin, and what better way to start off the regular season than by kicking the crap out of the Browns. That’s right, our Steelers travel to the mistake on the lake this Sunday to take on the rival Cleveland Browns at 1:00 PM. Is it even a rivalry anymore? Pittsburgh has won eight of the last nine contests and the Browns have not seen playoff action since we beat them in the 2002 wild card. The Browns situation doesn’t appear to be getting any better as they lost star receiver Terrelle Pryor and have a rookie at starting quarterback. The Steelers are healthier than ever, so I’m liking our odds. HERE WE GO STEELERS!!