Steelers open preseason play with two home games

The NFC champion Carolina Panthers revealed their preseason schedule for the 2016 season Thursday.

All four games will be televised on KDKA-TV. In other exhibition games of note, the National Football League champion Denver Broncos, who beat the Panthers in Super Bowl 50, will open the preseason at the Chicago Bears.

Carolina returns home in Week 3 to take on the New England Patriots (Aug. 25-28) before finishing the preseason with a home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday, Sept. 1.

No dates nor times were yet announced for the games.

Detroit is back on the road the following week, traveling to Baltimore to do battle with the Ravens in what many consider the dress rehearsal for the regular season. They last played the Eagles during the preseason in 2014 and lost that game 31-21.

The exhibition slate concludes as usual with the September 1 game against Buffalo, which will be at Ford Field for the second straight year.

The Lions will open the preseason with a trip to Pittsburgh.

This will be the 14th consecutive year the Steelers play the Panthers to end the preseason schedule.

The regular season schedule has not been announced yet but has been released before the draft in recent years.