It’s officially Pittsburgh Steelers month!

It’s July! You know what that means, right?

No, it doesn’t mean that summer is half over. I know this is a popular saying around this time of year, but unless fall begins on like July 10th or whatever (the first day of summer was June 21), the math just doesn’t add up.

For the purposes of this article, let’s just say that the beginning of July marks the start of Steelers Month. Why do I say that? Because July is the month that training camp begins, which will be on July 26.

After that, all the news about the Steelers will come organically. You won’t have to go on YouTube and satisfy your cravings with highlights from Steelers games of yesteryear. You won’t have to pretend to worry about soccer or baseball.

You won’t have to make irreverent comments such as, “Gee, must be a slow news day,” in response to articles...like this one. (BTW, why do you say that when you know darn right well that it’s a slow news day?)

Once training camp starts, everything else will flow naturally.

Before you know it, it will be August 13. The Steelers will play their first preseason game that evening, an event that will cause many fans to proclaim that it feels like Christmas morning (they may even put up a fake tree just to commemorate the special day).

Not long after that, on September 11, it will be the Steelers' first regular-season game against the not-so-bungly Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati.

Then, we’ll all be in the throes of the Steelers 2022 season. Who is doing well? Should Mike Tomlin be held accountable? Why doesn’t he ever have his team ready to play? Clock management. Left tackle!

Yes, the BTSC gameday threads will be rockin!

I’m so happy it is July, and the reason is simple: It happened again. It happens just about every summer around this time. What? Something triggered my excitement for the upcoming football season. As always, I was caught off guard, but, as always, in the most pleasant of ways. I was listening to some podcast (don’t even remember which one) just the other day and the intro included a score from the NFL Films' very famous and extensive music library. I could suddenly smell football in the air. I could feel those butterflies begin to fly around in the pit of my stomach. Despite the fact that it was over 90 degrees out and humid as heck, I could feel the chill of the, well, the autumn wind in the air as those mythical brown leaves began to swirl around in my backyard.

Some relationship guru recently said that I should never date a woman who is so self-centered that she considers her birthday month to be her BIRTHDAY MONTH!

Maybe that’s a huge red flag in the relationship world, but not in the Steelers world. I’ll be counting down the days until July 26. I won’t even have to be subtle about it and drop hints like we often have to do when our birthday is upcoming. Why? Because everyone else will be celebrating Steelers Month, too.

It’s almost here. The autumn wind might be a Raider, but it also includes the Steelers and football, so that’s just fine by me.

Happy Steelers Month!