Blathering Heights (Scouting Combine News 'n' Notes)

It’s a tradition unlike any other: opening Tuesday at the NFL Scouting Combine, the day when coaches and general managers each spend 10-15 minutes talking to the media while doing their best to say absolutely nothing of substance.

Thanks to Winter Storm Hernando, I was unable to attend Tuesday’s festivities; I’ll be heading out to the Combine to interview prospects on Wednesday. But I managed to hook up the proprietary Too Deep Zone Bulls**t Detector and Universal Translator to a variety of team websites and social media feeds in order to decode what NFL decision makers were trying their darndest NOT to say.

Eagles and A.J. Brown

What He Said: “Will A.J. be here next season? I can’t guarantee how anything is going to play out into next season. I’m thinking I’m going to be the coach next season but you can’t guarantee anything past tomorrow.” — Nick Sirianni, at a pre-combine news conference.

What He Meant: Howie is trying to make a deal.

What He Said: “We’re always listening. I don’t think you can go into any conversation with anyone and just shoot things down without hearing what they have to say — because you never know on any player. If someone’s going to give you something you didn’t anticipate and you won’t even have the conversation, I don’t think you’re necessarily doing your job.” — Howie Roseman, also at a pre-combine presser.

What He Meant: I’m trying to make a deal.

Wow, Sirianni sure sounds like he’s in a fine headspace, doesn’t he? It’s never a good sign when the head coach is saying things like tomorrow is promised to no mortal in late February.

Sirianni doesn’t want to hear the name “A.J. Brown” ever again. The feeling is surely mutual, which means Brown and his agent could help lubricate a trade, perhaps by restructuring Brown’s deal or facilitating talks with other teams. Roseman, meanwhile, wants his version of “fair market value” in exchange for Brown’s services, which means he wants to leave some team in a hotel bathroom with a surgical scar where their left kidney used to be.

It’s a delicate dance, and it won’t really swing into motion until George Pickens is officially tagged and the Colts decide what they are doing with Alec Pierce. Brown will look more appealing when some of the easier-to-acquire alternatives are off the board.

Steelers and Aaron Rodgers

What He Said: “The door’s open to have Aaron back. I’ve had conversations with him. I spoke to him last week. Mike McCarthy’s spoken to him. He knows how we feel about him.” — Steelers GM Omar Khan.

Khan added that there’s “no timetable” for Rodgers to make a decision. “All I’ll tell you guys is I don’t foresee this going like it did last year,” Khan said.

What He Meant: The Steelers are now pathetic doormats lacking in direction or dignity.

I took my English teacher wife to see Wuthering Heights on Valentine’s Day. I’m not very familiar with the original; all Victorians look alike to me. At about the two hour mark, I turned to whisper to my wife if there was at much “petplay” in the novel as there was in the adaptation. After expressing some shock and dismay that there was a common term for what we were watching on screen (and worse, that I was familiar with it), she assured me that there was not.

There’s a character named Isabella in Wuthering Heights who is a repressed, mousey and lovelorn in the original story; she got into an abusive relationship with Heathcliff because there wasn’t much else to do back then. Director Emerald Fennell kinks things up several notches in the film, and while one noteworthy scene ends up more silly than sexy or shocking, it gets the point across: Isabella digs slinking around on all fours and being treated like garbage by a man who is just using her to pursue some muddled agenda of lust and vengeance.