Who's in and who's out for Steelers preseason opener?

With just a couple of days remaining before the Steelers open up the preseason against the Texans, Mike Tomlin spoke to the media on Wednesday about a variety of topics, including which players will be suiting up on Friday night.

Some big name Steelers will not be playing in the preseason opener this year. T.J. Watt, Cam Heyward, Isaac Seumalo, and Alex Highsmith are all going to be in street clothes at kickoff. This can be presumed to be a veteran's game off for those players and they should play a few snaps during next week's game.

The future is a bit murkier for Russell Wilson, Minkah Fitzpatrick and Patrick Queen. Tomlin announced that those three players will miss Friday's game due to some minor training camp injuries. Wilson has missed a majority of training camp so far with an injury and only just recently returned to team drills. Fitzpatrick and Queen picked up injuries pretty recently, so the future is a bit more unknown with them. Hopefully, this is just precautionary, and all three return next week.

Outside of those players, it seems everyone else on the roster will get at least a few drives on Friday. Tomlin specifically mentioned that Justin Fields will get "a couple of series" with the first team offense (minus Seumalo of course). This will be a good chance for Fields to build more chemistry with those receivers and continue to build his case to be the week one starter.

Tomlin also gave an update on where 2023 first round pick Broderick Jones will be playing. He said that Jones will play both tackle positions on Friday night and going forward, with Dan Moore Jr. also getting the start. 2024 first round pick Troy Fautanu will get snaps with the second team offensive line.

Fans should keep an eye out for a couple of young players who should play quite a bit on Friday. Beanie Bishop was an undrafted cornerback in this year's draft and showed up as the starting nickel corner. Nick Herbig should get the start at outside linebacker as he looks to build upon a solid rookie campaign. And 2024 second round pick Zach Frazier isn't starting, but should get some significant snaps once starter Nate Herbig is done.

Steelers fans can tune into the game at 7 EST for the kickoff at Acrisure Stadium on Friday night.