The NFL spends a lot of time every year putting the schedule together, and although the league does its best to make sure every team is happy, there are always going to be some complaints. This year, one of those complaints is coming from Steelers owner Art Rooney II.
During an interview with the team’s official website, Rooney revealed there’s one thing on the schedule that he’s not too crazy about.
“We’re not crazy about having the night games late in the season,” Rooney said. “It happens, and it’s not a big, big deal, but we would prefer not to have too many night games late in the season.”
The Steelers will be playing two prime-time games during the second half of the season. First, they’ll head to Los Angeles for a Sunday night showdown with the Chargers in Week 10. Five weeks later, they’ll host the Dolphins in a Monday night battle that will take place in Week 15.
Rooney isn’t thrilled with either of those games, but it seems that out of those two, he’s more irked by the trip out to Southern California.
“I also look for the long trips and how they fall, and unfortunately we have a Sunday night game in Los Angeles,” Rooney said. “Not crazy about the playing those night games on the West Coast.”
Jim Nantz pleads for Aaron Rodgers to join Steelers: ‘We want you, we need you, we look forward to seeing you’
Cody Benjamin
One reason Rooney likely doesn’t enjoy the West Coast prime-time games is because of how late the team will end up getting back to Pittsburgh. The Week 10 game against the Chargers likely won’t end until about 11:15 p.m. ET, which means the Steelers probably won’t be on their team plane until about 1:30 a.m. ET. At that point, they still have to hop on a four and a half hour flight, which would put them back in Pittsburgh at 6 a.m. ET. In that situation, the team loses a night of sleep, something that won’t help them as they prepare for their next game, and that could be big in this case, because the Steelers will have a huge showdown with the Bengals in Week 11 following their prime-time game with the Chargers.
Last year, one of Rooney’s biggest complaints was that the Steelers didn’t play their first divisional game until Week 11. This year, the Steelers will have two divisional games under their belt before getting to Week 11.
“I like to have them a little more spread out than what we had last year,” Rooney said. “I thought last year was a little too much at the end of the season, and so I like the way the division games fall this year a little better.”
The Steelers also have a tough stretch starting in Week 13 when they’ll face the Bills, Ravens and Lions in a four-game span, but Rooney doesn’t seem too worried about that. Once again, his only big gripe is the prime-time trip to the West Coast.
“I don’t have any major complaints with the schedule,” Rooney said. “The only little complaint I have is that a night game on the West Coast is always something I’d prefer to avoid. But it happens, and we’ll deal with it. All in all, I like the way the schedule lays out. And it’s fairly balanced.”
The game against the Chargers will mark just the third time over the past five years that the Steelers have played a prime-time road game in the Pacific time zone. They went 1-1 in the previous two games and have gone 3-2 in that situation under head coach Mike Tomlin.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings