If the Steelers are going to repeat their 13-3 record from a year ago, they are going to have their work cut out for them.
The NFL released its 2018 schedule Thursday night, and while the Steelers knew their opponents, the way the league set the schedule offers plenty of challenges.
Most notable is a stretch following the team's bye Oct. 21. After hosting Cleveland Oct. 28 and then traveling to Baltimore Nov. 4, the Steelers host their Thursday night game -- every team plays on Thursday night once -- against Carolina.
Following that game -- and a 10-day layoff -- the Steelers travel to Jacksonville for a Sunday night game Nov. 18 in a rematch of their season-ending playoff loss in 2017. They then hit the road again the following week, heading to Denver before coming home to face the L.A. Chargers.
A week later, they travel to Oakland Dec. 9 to play the Raiders in a Sunday night game before coming home to host New England Dec. 16. The tough stretch continues the following week when Pittsburgh again hits the road, this time heading to New Orleans.
“It’s a tough stretch after the bye, and most of the prime time games fall into that stretch, as they did last year,” said Steelers President Art Rooney II. “It’ll be an interesting challenge.”
The Steelers have five prime time games in 2018, the most allowed for a team by NFL rules. That's not all that surprising given their 13-3 record last year and the fact they have made the playoffs in each of the past four seasons.
"It’s one of those things where having the night games means you’re one of the primetime teams and you want to be that kind of team where the league wants to feature you, and so you wind up having things like that,” said Rooney. “You just have to learn to deal with it.”
The Steelers open their season, as they have done regularly over the past two decades, playing the Browns. The Steelers open Sept. 9 at Cleveland. The full schedule:
Rooney said the Steelers will wear their color rush uniforms for that game, even though the league is no longer requiring teams to do so.
“We like our Color Rush uniforms,” he said, “and we plan to wear them that night until somebody tells us we’re not supposed to do that.”
He also said the Steelers will have a new throwback uniform as well this season that will be worn for one of the other home games.
“We’re going to have a new throwback jersey this year, and we’ll have to decide when we’re going to wear that,” said Rooney. “We haven’t decided that yet. That’ll be another piece of the puzzle, and we’ll look closer at the schedule and make a decision on when. We’ve already decided on the throwback jersey, but we have a planned day to unveil it, so that will be coming up at the end of May.”