The Pittsburgh Steelers are one of the most successful franchises in the history of the NFL and with Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback, the team knows it always can make the Super Bowl and after missing the playoffs last season, the team is ready to get back to the postseason.
Despite all their success, the team is only playing twice on MNF in the entire 2103 slate, once in the preseason against the Washington Redskins and once in the regular season against the division rival Cincinnati Bengals. The team has played on Monday night football plenty of times and this year they will get one regular season tilt on the road against the Bengals at 8:30 on ESPN on Sept. 16.
The team opens the season with the Titans before playing the Bengals on MNF and then they will play at home against the Bears and on the road against the Vikings before a bye week in Week 5 and the team will come back with a road game against the Jets.
Here is some info and scheduling news from the first week of the preseason, including the Saints and Raiders and their game in Week 2. The New Orleans Saints and quarterback Drew Brees put up some filthy numbers on offense last season without head coach Sean Payton and now that he is back after serving a year-long suspension for the bounty scandal, there is a chance that Brees and company could end up even better than last season.
Brees had a record-breaking season while throwing for over 5,000 yards and 43 touchdowns and he did it basically without a running game, giving defenses a chance to put more coverage on his receivers. The team is expecting to have a much more potent and consistent running game with Mark Ingram and Pierre Thomas as well as Darren Sproles and despite having a horrible defense, the team is expecting more from that unit as well after bringing in Rob Ryan to get things right.
The defense will be without linebacker Jonathan Vilma for a bit, as he is getting knee surgery according to ESPN.com. Last season he missed six games with knee issues and this year he is happy to get back on the field after dealing with the bounty fallout. The Saints have had some injuries at wide receiver with Joe Morgan going down for the year and now Brees will need to rely on Marques Colston and Lance Moore even 'more'. The team signed Patrick Crayton and Steve Breaston to contracts after Morgan went down and they also have young players Kenny Stills and Nick Toon to get chances.
The preseason matchup against the Oakland Raiders should give the team a chance to see what they have in the free agents and they all could see action in the preseason matchup. The Saints won their first game against the Chiefs 17-13 and they got some good play from Preston Parker and now Week 2 will be important as well. Last season the Saints ranked first in the league in passing yards per game, but that was their best unit, as the team ranked 25th in rushing yards as well as 31st and 32nd in passing and rushing yards allowed per game.
The Raiders are coming into the season with high expectations after going just 4-12 last season and they have a new quarterback as well as a whole crop of young players on offense, Matt Flynn comes in from the Seattle Seahawks, while general manager Reggie McKenzie also signed Charles Woodson, Tracy Porter, Kevin Burnett and Nick Roach on defense. The team went offense in the draft with Menelik Watson, Brice Butler, Tyler Wilson, Latavius Murray and Nick Kasa and the team hopes that can open things up for Flynn.