At 2-6, the Pittsburgh Steelers are no longer primetime.
Long one of the NFL’s most marketable franchises coveted by television networks, the Steelers were actively passed over by NBC for their “Sunday Night Football” package that for more than a decade has been TV’s most-watched show.
The Steelers’ Nov. 20 home game against the Cincinnati Bengals has been bumped up to a 4:25 p.m. kickoff because NBC exercised its “flex scheduling” option to move the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Los Angeles Chargers into its 8:20 p.m. national time slot.
The Steelers have lost six of their past seven after opening the season with a win in Cincinnati, their division rival and the reigning AFC champions.
The Steelers played 2 ½ weeks ago on “Sunday Night Football,” a 16-10 loss at the Miami Dolphins. They are scheduled to play Nov. 28 on “Monday Night Football” in Indianapolis against the Colts. Like all teams, the Steelers played a Thursday night game: theirs was Sept. 22 at the Cleveland Browns.
The NFL’s first-ever Christmas Eve night game is the Steelers hosting the Las Vegas Raiders in a game that will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the “Immaculate Reception.” That game cannot be flexed — which could create a proverbial lump of coal for NFL fans nationally because the Steelers and Raiders currently have a combined aggregate record of 4-12.
League rules allow for an annual maximum of five primetime games per team. The Steelers regularly are scheduled for the max. They have not had a losing season since 2003, the year before Ben Roethlisberger was drafted. Roethlisberger retired in January.
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