When the Pittsburgh Steelers and Las Vegas Raiders kick off their game at 4:05 p.m. ET on Sunday, only a handful of markets around the country will get the game on their local CBS station, per 506 Sports.
The areas marked blue will receive the Steelers-Raiders game on their local stations. It is pretty much limited to markets surrounding Pittsburgh and Vegas as well as a few other markets throughout the country.
The late-day slot with kickoff times of 4:05 or 4:25 include two divisional matchups and then a highly anticipated game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Detroit Lions. The Chargers-Broncos game is also on CBS in the same slot as the Steelers game. It is unclear which markets from the early slot will kick over to the Steelers-Raiders game and which will kick over to the Chargers-Broncos game.
The Lions-Cowboys and the Falcons-Panthers games will be on FOX, so there is no direct conflict, but the Cowboys-Lions is dominating the coverage map on that channel.
Vegas is one of those destination cities that fans travel to for their favorite team’s game. Pittsburgh fans already travel well, and Vegas will amplify that. I was at the Steelers-Raiders game in 2023, and it was very heavily slanted toward Steelers fans in the stadium. There is no reason to think that won’t happen again, especially with a struggling Raiders team at 2-3 entering the week and coming off a blowout loss to the Denver Broncos.
Both the Steelers and the Raiders have quarterback controversies at the moment, but Pittsburgh’s is seemingly a good problem to have, which is not the case in Las Vegas. Gardner Minshew II was benched on Sunday in favor of Aidan O’Connell. Head coach Antonio Pierce left things up in the air for who would be starting in Week 6.
Both teams will have some intrigue at the quarterback position for fans to watch on the broadcast. The Raiders are hoping that one of the two quarterbacks stick, while the Steelers are waiting to see if Justin Fields slams the door shut on Russell Wilson as the latter is finally back and healthy from his calf injury.
Any fans of top-notch pass rushers will also want to tune into this game. T.J. Watt and Maxx Crosby are two of the best in the league. Crosby missed Week 4 with an injury but returned in Week 5. He has 5.0 sacks in four games played. Watt has 4.5 sacks in five games played, though he had two strip-sacks negated by penalties in Week 1.
The Steelers’ pass rush will have to come from Watt this week as Alex Highsmith, Nick Herbig, and DeMarvin Leal are all out injured.
This game will be called by Ian Eagle, Charles Davis, and Evan Washburn.
