Week Two of the NFL preseason kicks off tonight with the the NFL Network showing two games. I’ll be live blogging the Philadelphia Eagles as they take on the Pittsburgh Steelers while sitting in the Tennessee Smokies pressbox. This is what they call “multitasking.” I call it eating free press box food and watching two games at once.
As always, scroll on down for the live blog. Keep reading for the press release from the NFL.
WEEK 2 OF NFL PRESEASON FEATURES SIX NATIONAL TV GAMES
– NFL TO USE EIGHTH OFFICIAL THIS WEEK –
Football is back. All 32 teams have played one game. And, in the first week of the preseason, two games were decided on a two-point conversion attempt with no time remaining.
In Kansas City, Seattle earned a 17-16 victory after scoring a touchdown as time expired and then converting the two-point conversion. And in Buffalo, Indianapolis held on for a 19-18 win as the Colts stopped the Bills on a two-point conversion attempt after Buffalo scored a touchdown as time expired.
Now it’s on to Week 2 of the preseason with Kickoff Weekend rapidly approaching.
Six games will be featured on national TV, starting with two contests on Thursday, August 18, continuing with one matchup on Friday, August 19 and concluding with three games on Saturday, August 20.
This week, the NFL will again experiment with eight officials on the field of play. The league tested the use of an eighth official during Week 2 of last year’s preseason.
The league has utilized seven-person officiating crews since 1978 when the side judge was added to the crew.
During this week’s experiment, the eighth official – called the “MJ” or “middle judge” – will help further the goal of trying to reduce the amount of times an official is responsible for multiple areas of the field that may not be in proximity to each other.
“We want to see if we can further improve our coverage of the field and take advantage of having another set of eyes out there,” says NFL Senior Vice President of Officiating DEAN BLANDINO. “So we’ll use this experiment to gather more information and continue to study it.”
The eighth official will line up approximately 20 yards downfield from the line of scrimmage. From there, the middle judge will focus on the center and two guards, with a particular emphasis on spotting defensive holding penalties.
PHILADELPHIA EAGLES at PITTSBURGH STEELERS (Thursday, NFLN, 7:00 PM ET)
Philadelphia scored two first-quarter touchdowns en route to a 17-9 win in the team’s preseason opener against Tampa Bay last week.
Eagles DT FLETCHER COX set up the team’s second touchdown by recording a sack, forcing a fumble and recovering the ball to give Philadelphia possession at the Buccaneers’ nine-yard line.
Pittsburgh opened the preseason at home last week with a 30-17 loss to Detroit.
Steelers second-year CB DORAN GRANT, who was selected in the fourth round (No. 121 overall) of the 2015 NFL Draft, had a 39-yard interception-return touchdown against the Lions. Grant appeared in three games for Pittsburgh last season as a rookie.
The games are on NFL Network beginning at 7 p.m. EST. Watch the first one with me.
