OUT AND ABOUT with STEVE CAMERON: On Seahawks, media deals and M's

Oh, my goodness!

White smoke pouring from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel.

I think it means the wait is over — someone finally drafted Shedeur Sanders.

Maybe all Browns executives get a discount on Shedeur’s personal clothing line.

It’s called “2Legendary.”

I honestly don’t know how well young Sanders will play in the NFL, but there will be so much chat buzzing around the guy, he’ll always be able to star in my “Out and About” columns.

Any old week.

Shedeur and his dad will say in the news, pretty much permanently.

So, thanks for my intro today, gentlemen.

Now let’s see what else is floating around.

ITEM: With all due respect to the Sanders family (and the new Pope) here is lot of legitimate news and information about the draft floating around.

Plenty of it is focused on the Seahawks, who have gotten top grades from most of the expert draftniks.

Here’s a take from Daniel Jeremiah of the NFL Network, who actually attached numbers to each team’s haul.

“It’s just off of how I had the players ranked pre-draft,” Jeremiah said.

“I thought (it showed how) the Seahawks got quantity and quality.”

Seattle drafted six players in Jeremiah’s top 150: South Carolina safety Nick Emmanwori (Jeremiah’s No. 15 overall prospect), North Dakota State offensive lineman Grey Zabel (No. 26), Miami tight end Elijah Arroyo (No. 51), Colorado State wide receiver Tory Horton (No. 73), Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe (No. 86) and Notre Dame defensive lineman Rylie Mills (No. 108).

The only teams with more players drafted from Jeremiah’s top 150 were the New England Patriots and Cleveland Browns, who each had seven.

If only the Seahawks were awarded some actual touchdowns for being so smart, the draft would have been colossal.

Obviously, we’ll be back to this topic again, but for now, let’s move along.

ITEM: I guess we can breathe a teeny bit easier, what with the new Pac-12 agreeing to mediation with the Mountain West.

Thank heavens.

There are several lawsuits on the table in this mess, with both conferences suing each other and a few soon-to-leave MWC schools fighting to avoid — or reduce — their departure fees.

Meanwhile, the Mountain West hoped to hit the Pac-12 with poaching penalties for accepting a group of schools who chose to bail out.

“How long might the mediation last?” asked regional reporting guru Jon Wilner. “The process could take one day or many weeks.

“When Washington State and Oregon State took the Pac-12’s former schools to court in the fall of 2023 over control of the conference, mediation required numerous sessions and lasted three months.”

Swell.

At least the lawyers will get fat.

Spoiler: In the current climate permeating college athletics, everyone is poaching somebody else.

We may soon see players changing teams at halftime.

Loyalty has been trampled without a shred of guilt in the rush to grab that next pile of cash.

No one comes out looking clean these days.

Sad.

ITEM: Are the Mariners doing this with mirrors?

Is it a magic trick?

A team that hoped to be a contender in 2025 on the strength of its pitching staff has seen “the best starting rotation in MLB” go down wounded (George Kirby and Logan Gilbert) or struggle to find some form (Bryce Miller).

Only Bryan Woo and Luis Castillo have been in stride so far.

If someone had told you about this pitching crisis, you’d have pegged Seattle for fourth place in the AL West.

Or last, when you learned Julio Rodriguez wasn’t really contributing much on offense.

Victor Robles and Luke Raley are both out for at least half the season with serious injuries, so the starting right fielder on Wednesday (against the A’s in Sacramento) was Leody Taveras, acquired off waivers from Texas a day earlier.

Taveras was hitting .241 with 23 strikeouts against just two walks, but this is a guy who started every game in center field during Texas’ run to winning the World Series two years ago.

And yet, here they are, opening a homestand against Toronto and then the Yankees, with the Mariners in first place at 22-14.

That’s a pace to win 99 games, by the way.

Surprising, but the real eye-rolling was Mariners ownership shelling out more than $3 million to add Leody Taveras.

Yee-hah!

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press three times each week, normally Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”