How long will they pull the smoke over people’s eyes?

This beauty was heard on the Pittsburgh sports radio talk show, 93.7 The Fan. “Bob from Freeport” called in about how Mike Tomlin and the Steelers are just not that good, and he uttered this nice congruent conflation of “pull the wool over (someone’s) eyes” and “smoke and mirrors”, both describing deception or trickery. This one is similar to a prior malaphor posting, “He pulled the rug over their eyes”. https://malaphors.com/2016/06/08/he-pulled-the-rug-over-their-eyes/ A big shout out to Brian Steffes for hearing this one.