First Call: Update on Arthur Smith's interviews; NFL playoff TV ratings dip; lengthy Pens road trip starts

Friday’s “First Call” provides an update on Arthur Smith’s status as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive coordinator as he travels for head coaching interviews.

NFL TV ratings aren’t off to a great start in the playoffs. The Penguins are trying to salvage their sinking ship of a season with a long road trip. Robert Morris’ hockey team is finally about to play at home again.

And we preview a busy weekend for local college basketball fans.

Is Art out?

It doesn’t sound like Arthur Smith is going to be getting the Chicago Bears head coaching job.

The Steelers’ offensive coordinator interviewed for that opening Wednesday. But according to Bleacher Report’s Jordan Schultz, the Bears are likely to go in another direction.

.@Schultz_Report says the Chicago Bears head coaching search is a two-horse race between Mike McCarthy and Ben Johnson pic.twitter.com/Y4x0lx6iP8

— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) January 16, 2025

”For all intents and purposes, the Chicago job, it is a two-horse race between Mike McCarthy and Ben Johnson,” Schultz said during an appearance Thursday with Colin Cowherd on FS1. “If Brian Flores goes in and wows them, then he is still in that mix, but right now, I think McCarthy and I think Ben Johnson are the two leading candidates.”

McCarthy is a Greenfield native who was just recently fired by the Dallas Cowboys. Johnson is currently the offensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions. Flores was a defensive assistant on Mike Tomlin’s staff in Pittsburgh back in 2022. He has spent the past two years as the defensive coordinator in Minnesota.

Smith also interviewed with the New York Jets on Thursday.

Taking a dip

Television ratings for the NFL’s first playoff weekend were down 9.3% from last year. That’s after a 2.2% dip for the league’s regular season numbers from what we saw a year ago too.

The news comes from the Associated Press. However, the outlet stated that the Steelers-Ravens game on Saturday night wasn’t part of the problem. It says both matchups on Saturday “held steady” with games in those windows last winter.

The AP says, “Baltimore’s victory over Pittsburgh averaged 22.07 million on Amazon Prime Video. It is a record for the most-watched game on Prime, surpassing the 17.29 million for the Detroit-Green Bay game on Dec. 5.”

That didn’t quite match Peacock’s numbers for Kansas City-Miami last year, though, missing by 3%. Then again, those numbers were posted during the height of Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce mania.

According to ProFootballTalk, 2023’s divisional round drew 40 million viewers on average for the four games, an all-time high. So that’ll be a tall order for the NFL product to match this weekend.

The return of the Chiefs and Lions to the schedule will help numbers. Plus, Sunday night’s Ravens-Bills game is a huge matchup with the added spice of MVP candidates Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen squaring off against one another.

Can it get worse?

After a tremendously disappointing homestand, the Penguins play their first of seven consecutive road games Friday night in Buffalo.

The Penguins just lost four of five on home ice at PPG Paints Arena. They’ve dropped seven of eight overall and begin play Friday night with only 44 points. That puts them in 14th place in the Eastern Conference, five points out of a playoff spot with six teams to pass.

After visiting Buffalo on Friday, the Pens head down to Washington to play the Capitals on Saturday night. Then it’s a five-game western swing through Los Angeles, Anaheim, Seattle, San Jose and Utah between Jan. 20 and 29.

To make matters worse, the Pens have just six road wins all year. That’s tied with the Columbus Blue Jackets for the fewest in the Eastern Conference.

The Sabres are one of the few teams in the East worse than Mike Sullivan’s Penguins. In fact, they are the worst team in the conference, with just 39 points. Although, they have been decent lately, winning three of their last four games.

Former Penguin Jason Zucker is playing well for Buffalo. He is second on the team in both goals (15) and points (33). Only Tage Thomspon (19 goals, 35 points) has more.

The Pens skated to a 6-5 overtime victory at home against Buffalo on Oct. 16.

Give it another go

The Robert Morris hockey team will try again to get back on home ice for the first time since Nov. 29. on Friday night. RIT is in town for a two-game weekend series.

Thanks to the holiday break, a tournament in Arizona, and three road series in conference play, it’s been 48 days since the Colonials played a home game.

Derek Schooley’s club tried to host Canisius on Tuesday. But the Golden Griffins got stuck behind an accident on the way down from Buffalo, then hit Erie, and the snow was so bad they had to turn around and go home. That game has been rescheduled for this coming Tuesday.

As for this weekend’s series against the Tigers, they come in scuffling at 4-17-1. They have just nine conference points, placing them 10th out of 11 Atlantic Hockey teams. RMU is eighth with 19 points. The Tigers won the regular season AHA crown a year ago with 54 points. Then, they won the conference tournament and went to the NCAAs as well.

As for the RMU women’s team (seven points, sixth in the AHA), they are hosting the Tigers (13 points, fourth in the Atlantic) on Neville Island as well. The women’s games are at 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Clearview Arena. The men follow at 7 p.m. both nights.

Busy weekend

The men’s basketball teams for Pitt and Duquesne are home Saturday.

The Panthers host Clemson at noon. The Tigers (14-4) are 6-1 in ACC action, tied with Louisville for second place in the conference behind 7-0 Duke. The Panthers (12-5) are in a four-way tie for seventh place at 3-3. They’ve lost three in a row.

Duquesne (8-9, 3-1 A-10) welcomes St. Bonaventure (15-3, 3-2 A-10) to the UPMC Cooper Fieldhouse at 2 p.m. Both clubs won Wednesday, with the Dukes topping George Washington, 73-65, and the Bonnies locking down Richmond at home 63-49.

The Dukes have won three of four in Atlantic 10 action to open the conference season. They beat St. Bonaventure three times last year en route to their A-10 conference championship. That included a 70-60 win over Mark Schmidt’s team in the A-10 semifinals in Brooklyn. Schmidt is in his 18th year of coaching there. He was at Robert Morris from 2001-07.

Meanwhile, the Colonials (11-7, 3-4 Horizon), now coached by Andy Toole, are at Green Bay (2-16, 0-7) on Friday night.

On the women’s side of the schedule, Pitt hosts 14th-ranked North Carolina at 2 p.m. Sunday, at the same time as Duquesne welcomes Rhode Island. RMU has a Saturday afternoon game at Youngstown State (2 p.m.).