The NFL released their official preseason schedule Friday morning for all teams, including the Steelers.
The Steelers and Cowboys, who play each other in the preseason kickoff Hall of Fame Game event, are the only two NFL teams who play four preseason games this year. The rest of the NFL teams are set to play three preseason games each with the reduced preseason scheduled agreed upon between the NFL and NFLPA in exchange for the extra regular season game that increased each team's total games to 17.
We knew who the Steelers opponents were for those games, but now we know exactly when their four games will happen.
• vs. Cowboys, in Canton, OH, Thursday, Aug. 5, 8:00 p.m.
• at Eagles, Thursday, Aug. 12, 7:30 p.m.
• vs. Lions, Saturday, Aug. 21, 7:30 p.m.
• at Panthers, Friday, Aug. 27, 7:30 p.m.
Typically the Steelers would rest their main starters for the first and last games of the preseason, while giving them more time to play during the second and third games. But the Hall of Fame Game could make things different as an additional fourth game rather than an additional fifth game. Usually that game would never feature a team's primary starters as the team rested them and gave more playing time for their backups and guys fighting to make the bottom of the depth chart.
How the Steelers might approach those games could be interesting for different training camp battles that play out at Saint Vincent College. They'll also get to see a few new starting quarterbacks for their teams in the Eagles' Jalen Hurts who only took over late last season for Carson Wentz, the Lions' Jared Goff who was traded to them from the Rams, and the Panthers' Sam Darnold who came there from the Jets.
Those may be prime opportunities for cornerbacks like Justin Layne, James Pierre, Shakur Brown and Tre Norwood to earn their places in the secondary if they can make some plays on the ball against those quarterbacks.
