During 19 years with the Steelers, coach Mike Tomlin worked 114 games against teams from the AFC North. In his fifth game as an analyst on NBC’s Football Night in America, Tomlin will be handling a game involving an AFC North team.
It’ll happen on October 11 in Atlanta, when the Ravens face the Falcons.
As mentioned on Thursday’s PFT Live, Tomlin’s assessment of the Ravens and quarterback Lamar Jackson promises to be must-see TV.
That opinion is based on just a few minutes of hearing Tomlin talk during an FNIA planning meeting on Monday about the challenge of defending Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, along with other things Tomlin believes Jackson needs to do as he gets closer to his 30th birthday.
I’ll defer the details to Tomlin. But his comments riveted the room. In general, you won’t want to miss anything Tomlin says before any Sunday night game. You definitely will not want to miss what he has to say during the pregame show before Jackson and the Ravens face the Falcons in Week 5.
Steelers Clips
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
The NFL announced the matchups for its first Thanksgiving Eve game and all three Thanksgiving games ahead of Thursday night’s schedule reveal, so the only thing left to announce for the three-day holiday spread of games was the Black Friday matchup.
That game will feature the Broncos visiting the Steelers in a game that will start at 3 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on Amazon Prime Video.
It will be the first time that either franchise has played a Black Friday game. The NFL first held a game on the day after Thanksgiving in 2023 and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said that the league is considering ways to add a second game.
That is what they’ve done with the Thanksgiving Eve game. It will involve the Packers visiting the Rams on Wednesday night in a game broadcast by Netflix.
Thanksgiving’s schedule will start in Detroit as usual. The Lions will host the Bears at 1 p.m. ET on CBS and the Eagles will visit the Cowboys on Fox at 4:30 p.m. ET. Thursday’s action will conclude with the Chiefs in Buffalo to face the Bills at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC.
The Steelers signed safety Makari Paige to a one-year contract on Wednesday, the team announced.
Paige originally signed with the Giants as a college free agent following the 2025 draft. He spent time on the Giants’ practice squad last season.
He played collegiately at the University of Michigan, where he appeared in 53 games. Paige was on the Wolverines’ 2023 national championship team.
He recorded 135 total tackles, including 64 solo stops, 11 passes defensed, three interceptions, two tackles for a loss, a sack and a fumble recovery.
In a corresponding move, the Steelers released cornerback Cory Trice Jr. with a failed physical.
The Steelers selected Trice in the seventh round of the 2023 draft, and he played six games with one start in 2024 in his only regular-season action. Trice had knee and hamstring injuries that kept him sidelined the rest of his time in Pittsburgh, including a torn ACL during training camp in his rookie campaign.
All of the international matchups for the 2026 NFL season were announced on Wednesday morning.
We already knew the first two games on the schedule. The 49ers and Rams will meet in the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1 while the Ravens and Cowboys will head to Brazil to play a game in Rio in Week 3.
There will be three straight weeks of games in London kicking off the next week. The Colts will face the Commanders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Week 4 and the Eagles and Jaguars will square off in the same place the next week. The Jaguars will stay in London to take on the Texans at Wembley Stadium in Week 6.
From there, it will be on to Paris for the first time in league history. The Steelers will battle the Saints at Stade de France in Week 7.
The Bengals-Falcons matchup in Madrid in Week 9 was announced earlier this week and it will be followed by a Patriots-Lions clash at Allianz Arena in Munich the next weekend. The NFL’s return to Mexico City will come in Week 11 when the Vikings and the 49ers square off on Sunday Night Football.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has talked about his desire to see the league play international games each week and the NFL is moving closer to that goal in 2026.
With multiple indications that talks are ongoing between the Steelers and quarterback Aaron Rodgers, what are they talking about?
The only significant topic for negotiation in any veteran contract is money — amount and structure. There could be anther subject, in theory.
This is speculation. I haven’t heard anything to substantiate the possibility. But with a vacuum of information regarding Rodgers, the goal is to make sense of what’s happening.
There’s no guarantee the Steelers will be as good or better than they were a year ago, especially with the franchise’s first coaching change in 19 years. If things go poorly, the Steelers may eventually want to give a young quarterback (Will Howard or Drew Allar) live game reps. If that happens, what will they do with Rodgers?
That should be determined now. Even if it’s not part of the official contract (and it can’t be), Rodgers could seek an unofficial commitment that, if he’s ever benched, he’d also be released.
If that happens after the trade deadline, Rodgers would have to pass through waivers. If it’s believed at the time that Rodgers is targeting a potential quarterback-needy team, anyone could block that by putting in a waivers claim.
There’s only one way for Rodgers to emerge from Pittsburgh in the event of a major early-season regression with the freedom to sign anywhere at any time. Rodgers would have to be released before the Tuesday after Week 9.
What if he’s looking for that kind of commitment on the way in? If the Steelers are (for example) 3-6 or worse after the ninth Sunday of the season (assuming their bye comes after Week 9), he’ll be released — without having to ask for it.
This is spitballing. But Rodgers is smart enough to play out the permutations. He’s experienced enough to have a good sense as to whether the sudden change from Mike Tomlin to Mike McCarthy could result in the wheels coming off for the Steelers. He’s prudent enough to want to have a plan for anything/everything.
It would be very prudent to plan for a quick and easy escape hatch, in the event the first year of the Mike McCarthy era starts poorly.
This season, the Saints will host the NFL’s first-ever regular-season game in France. Per multiple reports, the opponent will be the Steelers.
The @OzzyNFL account on Twitter, which has been leaking schedule information, posted earlier tonight that Pittsburgh and New Orleans will square off in Paris on October 25. Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer has confirmed the news.
All international games that haven’t been previously announced are due to be disclosed on Wednesday morning. This year, nine games will be played on foreign soil: Three in London, one in Paris, one in Madrid, one in Melbourne, one in Germany, one in Rio de Janeiro, and one in Mexico City.
That’s up from five in 2025. And the league, which currently may stage up to 10 international games under the Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFL Players Association, hopes to expand that number to 16.
Long-time NFL assistant coach Tom Moore hasn’t retired, after all. The 87-year-old offensive guru will return to where it all started.
Iowa.
Via Scott Dochterman of The Athletic, Moore will serve as senior consultant to the head coach and offensive advisor at the school where Moore played quarterback from 1958 through 1960. He also started his coaching career there, from 1961 to 1962.
Moore’s coaching career after leaving Iowa took him to Dayton, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, Minnesota, the New York Stars of the WFL, and Minnesota again before becoming an NFL assistant coach in 1977.
He spent 13 seasons with the Steelers, four with the Vikings, three with the Lions, and one with the Saints.
Moore arrived with the Colts in 1998, Peyton Manning’s rookie season. Moore served as Manning’s offensive coordinator for the first 11 years of his career, before taking on a senior position in 2009 and 2010.
Moore then went to the Jets for a year, the Titans for a year, the Cardinals for five years (with head coach Bruce Arians). After taking 2018 off, Moore reunited with Arians in Tampa Bay, where Moore worked as an offensive consultant from 2019 through 2025.
In all, Moore has won four Super Bowl rings — two with the Steelers (1978, 1979), one with the Colts (2006), and one with the Buccaneers (2020). Now, 64 years after leaving Iowa, his career is coming full circle.
The Steelers made a change on their offensive line after their rookie minicamp.
They announced that they have signed center Greg Crippen after he tried out for the team over the weekend. They waived offensive lineman Sataoa Laumea in a corresponding move.
Crippen started all 13 games for Michigan last season and appeared in 41 games over his entire time in Ann Arbor. Zach Frazier is set to start at center for the Steelers this season and Ryan McCollum is also on hand as a backup.
Laumea was a Seahawks sixth-round pick in 2024 and he started six games during his rookie season. He was waived last summer and spent time on the Saints’ practice squad before signing with Pittsburgh in January.
Aaron Rodgers may have been in Pittsburgh over the weekend, but his visit didn’t include a meeting with the Steelers.
A report from 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh late last week said that Rodgers would be at the team’s facility and that he was expected to sign with the team before the weekend was over. Subsequent reports cast doubt on the imminent signing, whether the Steelers had any idea that Rodgers was going to be in the city and that any meeting was in the works.
Saturday brought word that Rodgers and the Steelers had not met and Adam Schefter of ESPN said on The Pat McAfee Show on Monday that the weekend passed without any interaction between the quarterback and the team.
The Steelers move into the final phase of their offseason program next Monday when they hold the first of 10 scheduled offseason team activities. Whether Rodgers will be there for any of those workouts remains as much of a mystery as it was when his first season as a Steeler came to an end in a 30-6 blowout loss to the Texans.
