{"id":920352,"date":"2026-07-08T07:14:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T07:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/920352\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T07:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T07:14:16","slug":"steelers-will-spend-entire-preseason-in-the-national-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/920352\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers Will Spend Entire Preseason In The National Spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few teams are more intriguing entering the 2026 season than the Pittsburgh Steelers. Aaron Rodgers is returning for what is widely expected to be his farewell campaign, and Mike McCarthy is beginning his first season as the head coach of his hometown Steelers. Correspondingly, the NFL has placed all three of Pittsburgh\u2019s preseason games in primetime on NFL Network, according to a press release from ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh\u2019s first preseason game is on Thursday, Aug. 13 at home against the Green Bay Packers at 7:00 PM ET. While Aaron Rodgers is unlikely to play a snap, he will be on the sidelines with McCarthy for the first time since 2018, the last time the two were together.<\/p>\n

That should draw plenty of ratings from Packers fans, but it\u2019ll also be a big draw for Steelers fans. For one, McCarthy\u2019s debut will draw attention after nearly two decades of Mike Tomlin manning the sideline. It\u2019s also likely the first NFL game action we see from Will Howard and perhaps even rookie Drew Allar. Howard missed his rookie preseason due to an injury.<\/p>\n

The following week\u2019s preseason game will be played on Friday, Aug. 21 at 7:00 PM ET at home against the New York Jets. Pittsburgh played in Week 1 against the Jets last year, but it\u2019s still interesting to watch Rodgers return to another former team during the preseason of his farewell tour.<\/p>\n

The third and final preseason game is on the road against the Buffalo Bills on Thursday, Aug. 27. If it\u2019s anything like last season, Rodgers will not play, but Howard and Allar will play deep into the contest.<\/p>\n

Between McCarthy\u2019s debut, Howard\u2019s first preseason action, Allar\u2019s NFL debut, and the continued attention surrounding Rodgers\u2019 expected final season, the Steelers will be one of the NFL\u2019s biggest preseason attractions. Fans across the country won\u2019t have to search for the games either; all three will air nationally on NFL Network.<\/p>\n

See the Steelers\u2019 full 2026 schedule here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few teams are more intriguing entering the 2026 season than the Pittsburgh Steelers. Aaron Rodgers is returning for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":560505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[39],"tags":[2390,70473,139638,1232,1545,62,939,67,132,68,7954],"class_list":["post-920352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-aaron-rodgers","tag-drew-allar","tag-mike-mccarthy","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-sports","tag-trending","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-will-howard"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}