Some ‘food for thought’

As some high school football teams get ready to kickoff Week 0 while others ready for another week of practice as usual, here’s a little food for thought: This whole Brandon Aiyuk situation has been pretty bizarre … and tiring.

On one hand, the 49ers claim they NEVER wanted to trade the disgruntled wide receiver, yet they were fully willing to sign off on either deal for Aiyuk with New England or Cleveland before Aiyuk put the kybosh to both. There was no upping the offer when those deals were in place.

Now, all of a sudden, the 49ers are stepping up their efforts to keep him with the team because they always wanted him.

Supposedly, Aiyuk has said he always preferred staying in San Francisco.

Huh? What’s even more interesting is apparently Aiyuk has not signed that increased offer, yet he has not been traded to the Steelers either.

I’ve already had to sharpen my pencil three times trying to keep score in this game.

• Add Aiyuk: I expect any day now (even today) we hear that he has signed to stay with the 49ers.

If you were him or any talented receiver and you watched that offense struggle in Saturday’s 9-3 Steelers’ loss to Buffalo, would you be excited about joining that team?

I didn’t think so.

• Speaking of the Steelers’ offensive woes to date, I know it is only preseason, but I guarantee you that Mike Tomlin and offensive coordinator Arthur Smith would prefer to have scored more than one touchdown in two games. The starters haven’t scored once.

Yeah, there is no chance Smith is running his “real” offensive game plan in the preseason, but there still should be some expectation of some success going against vanilla defenses.

So far, it looks scarily a lot like Matt Canada’s offense.

• Add Steelers I: It definitely takes time for an offensive line to gel. Especially when you expect to have at least two new starters there. But so far, this group looks very overmatched.

And it isn’t the rookies.

Russell Wilson was sacked three times in the first half and none of those were his fault. He would drop back and immediately be under duress.

One of the chief violators was Broderick Jones at right tackle.

They expect to move him to the left side during the season? Why not do it right now? Isn’t that what the exhibition season is for?

• Add Steelers II: With the ineffectiveness of the Steelers offense so far, a lot of fans are looking back to only a year ago when the first team played only five series together and scored five touchdowns.

Then the regular season started and it all went to hell quickly.

Then there are the stats that the Steelers have done better coming off losing preseasons than when they won under Tomlin.

Well, if those are the two main reasons to not worry about the offense going into the regular season, I would be worried.

• Now you just know I wasn’t going to let the Pirates escape unscathed.

I said months ago that the team’s front office was going to be perfectly willing to just blow off an unexpectedly first-rate starting pitching staff that included rookies Paul Skenes and Jared Jones and veteran Mitch Keller.

That’s exactly what they did. They failed to make any badly needed moves to strengthen an embarrassing lineup during the season and when they did, they did so like they do signing free agents in the offseason.

They went dumpster diving for the cheapest bats around that would cost the least amount in return.

I honestly think Isiah Kiner- Falefa is a good addition and will help the offense. But he isn’t the power hitter the team really needed.

And, so far Bryan De La Cruz (or should I call him De La Strikeout) was probably about fifth or sixth on the list of available players the team could have traded for if that high. They waited until the other attractive power hitter were sucked up by other teams.

• Add Pirates: Let me tell you that GM Ben Cherington is just as big of a failure at his job as Derek Shelton has been at his.

Not only has Cherington refused to part with any of his top minor league prospects for players to help the team right now, but after four years of tanking for better draft picks the Pirates were rated to have the 27th best minor league system.

Really? Shelton has never been the manager for this job. Even when he had no talent to work with, he could have at least had this team playing hard fundamental baseball. The Bucs have been the worst in the league fundamentally and his managing decisions have been borderline hilarious.

Cherington and Shelton have had five years to turn things around and their result is a mediocre team with a mediocre farm system.

No franchise would ever permit such a long stretch of no success like the Pirates have.

Unless it’s the Steelers.

• To close out on a positive note, if you haven’t yet been following the Little League World Series on television, you are missing out.

It’s baseball at its purest sense. Kids playing the game hard for the love of it and playing for their state or country.

I swear I watch some of these teams play the game more fundamentally sound than the Pirates.

The more you watch, the harder it is to realize you are seeing kids who are 11 or 12 years old.

I think I look forward to the LLWS each year as much as or maybe even more than the NCAA Tournament.

Anyone with any thoughts, opposing views or comments on this column can reach Jeff Oliver by emailing justjto@verizon.net.