Pittsburgh (10-8) at New York Jets (5-12)
Sunday, 1 p.m. EDT, CBS.
BetMGM NFL odds: Steelers by 3.
Series record: Steelers lead 21-7.
Last meeting: Steelers beat Jets 37-15 on Oct. 20, 2024, in Pittsburgh.
Steelers offense: overall (23), rush (12), pass (26), scoring (19t).
Steelers defense: overall (15), rush (11), pass (23), scoring (7).
Jets offense: overall (24), rush (31), pass (17), scoring (24t).
Jets defense: overall (5), rush (17), pass (3), scoring (19).
Turnover differential: Steelers plus-16; Jets minus-2.
QB Aaron Rodgers. The NFL's oldest active player begins what could be his 21st and final season by facing a New York team he tried (and failed) to lift out of the doldrums in 2024. What Rodgers has left is a bit of a mystery after the 41-year-old didn't play a single snap during the preseason. Pittsburgh's ability to contend will rely heavily on a young offensive line giving Rodgers enough time to throw. If it does, he might have a little magic left. If it doesn't, Rodgers might end up wishing he'd opted into retirement rather than pair up with kindred spirit Mike Tomlin for one last run.
QB Justin Fields. The Steelers' Week 1 starter last season is now QB1 for the Jets, his third team in as many seasons. His first training camp in New York was underwhelming with very little downfield passing and lots of focus on the running game, but coach Aaron Glenn insisted Fields was doing everything the team asked of him. The Jets are hoping Fields can join the short list of late-bloomer quarterbacks who thrived in their third or fourth NFL stops.
Steelers LB T.J. Watt vs. Jets rookie RT Armand Membou. Watt remains one of the NFL's elite pass rushers and he'll likely line up most of the time against Membou, the No. 7 overall pick out of Missouri.
Steelers: Rookie DT Derrick Harmon, the club's first-round selection, is out after spraining his knee in Pittsburgh's preseason finale against Carolina. The team is relatively healthy otherwise, with LB Nick Herbig (hamstring) and WR Calvin Austin III (abdominal) are both expected to play.
Jets: RG Alijah Vera-Tucker will miss the season with a torn triceps. ... CB Sauce Gardner (fibula) and backup QB Tyrod Taylor (knee) were limited early, but expected to play. ... Backup OL Chukwuma Okorafor (hand) sat out early in the week.
The Steelers won the meeting last season, with Russell Wilson leading the way against Rodgers and the Jets. But New York has won two of the past three matchups and three of the past five — including the past two at MetLife Stadium. ... The teams have met twice in the postseason, both wins by the Steelers: 24-19 in the AFC championship game in January 2011, and 20-17 in overtime in the divisional round in 2005.
Rodgers and Fields will be the seventh and eighth quarterbacks — and first head to head — to start a season opener against the team for which they started the opener the previous season, per Sportradar. The others are Russell Wilson (vs. Seahawks, 2022), Baker Mayfield (vs. Browns, 2022), Sam Darnold (vs. Jets, 2021), Chad Pennington (vs. Jets, 2008), Kurt Warner (vs. Giants, 2005) and Jack Kemp (vs. Chargers, 1963). ... If the Jets win, Fields will be the first QB to win a season opener for a team in one season and then beat that same team in the season opener the next. ... Rodgers is the fifth different Week 1 starting QB in as many seasons for the Steelers (Ben Roethlisberger, Mitch Trubisky, Kenny Pickett and Fields). That group combined to go 3-1 in the openers, with only Pickett ending up on the wrong side. ... This is the 10th time in the past 11 seasons Pittsburgh has opened on the road. The Steelers are 6-2-1 in their previous nine road openers. ... Pittsburgh is 48-39-5 in season openers, including 17-20-2 on the road. ... Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is entering his 19th season with the organization and is the longest-tenured head coach in major North American sports. If Tomlin leads Pittsburgh to 11 wins this season, he'll pass Hall of Famer Chuck Noll (193) for the most victories in team history. ... Pittsburgh added cornerbacks Jalen Ramsey and Darius Slay and their 13 combined Pro Bowl appearances in the offseason to a defense that has led the league in turnover margin (plus-27) since the start of the 2023 season. ... Rodgers enters his 21st season fifth all time in touchdown passes (503). Next up is former Green Bay teammate Brett Favre in fourth at 508. Rodgers is seventh in career yards passing (62,952) and should crack the top five this season if he stays healthy. ... New Steelers WR DK Metcalf is one of two receivers in NFL history to have 50 or more receptions, 900 or more yards and five or more TD catches in each of their first six seasons. Hall of Famer Randy Moss is the other. ... Steelers LB TJ Watt begins his ninth season with 108 sacks, including three against Fields. ... Glenn makes his NFL head coaching debut after serving the past four seasons as Detroit's defensive coordinator. The former cornerback played eight of his 15 NFL seasons for the Jets and played in two postseasons with New York. ... Fields was 4-2 as Pittsburgh's starter last season in place of an injured Wilson. He'll be playing for his third NFL team in as many years with his third offensive system in that span and is being coached by a fourth coordinator during an NFL career entering only its fifth season. ... Fields and WR Garrett Wilson were teammates at Ohio State during the 2019 and 2020 seasons. They were also recently voted team captains by Jets teammates. ... Wilson is coming off a season during which he became the fifth player in NFL history with 80 or more catches and 1,000 or more yards receiving in each of his first three seasons, joining Ja'Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, Michael Thomas and Odell Beckham Jr. ... Rookie TE Mason Taylor, the Jets' second-round pick out of LSU, is the son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Jason Taylor, who played for New York during the 2010 season. ... Edge rusher Jermaine Johnson is expected to make his return after tearing an Achilles tendon in Week 2 of last season.
Jets RB Breece Hall is still the lead back, but could cede carries to Braelon Allen, especially near the goal line. Hall still has big value in PPR leagues since he's expected to play a large role in the passing game as a safety valve for Fields.
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
New York Jets head coach Aaron Glenn talks to reporters after a preseason NFL football game against the Philadelphia Eagles in East Rutherford, N.J., Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin)
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin watches during warm ups before an NFL preseason football game between the Carolina Panthers and the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Scott Kinser)
FILE - Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers runs a drill during the NFL football team's training camp in Latrobe, Pa., Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump would not be the first president to invoke the Insurrection Act, as he has threatened, so that he can send U.S. military forces to Minnesota.
But he'd be the only commander in chief to use the 19th-century law to send troops to quell protests that started because of federal officers the president already has sent to the area — one of whom shot and killed a U.S. citizen.
The law, which allows presidents to use the military domestically, has been invoked on more than two dozen occasions — but rarely since the 20th Century's Civil Rights Movement.
Federal forces typically are called to quell widespread violence that has broken out on the local level — before Washington's involvement and when local authorities ask for help. When presidents acted without local requests, it was usually to enforce the rights of individuals who were being threatened or not protected by state and local governments. A third scenario is an outright insurrection — like the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Experts in constitutional and military law say none of that clearly applies in Minneapolis.
“This would be a flagrant abuse of the Insurrection Act in a way that we've never seen,” said Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security Program. “None of the criteria have been met.”
William Banks, a Syracuse University professor emeritus who has written extensively on the domestic use of the military, said the situation is “a historical outlier” because the violence Trump wants to end “is being created by the federal civilian officers” he sent there.
But he also cautioned Minnesota officials would have “a tough argument to win” in court, because the judiciary is hesitant to challenge “because the courts are typically going to defer to the president” on his military decisions.
Here is a look at the law, how it's been used and comparisons to Minneapolis.
George Washington signed the first version in 1792, authorizing him to mobilize state militias — National Guard forerunners — when “laws of the United States shall be opposed, or the execution thereof obstructed.”
He and John Adams used it to quash citizen uprisings against taxes, including liquor levies and property taxes that were deemed essential to the young republic's survival.
Congress expanded the law in 1807, restating presidential authority to counter “insurrection or obstruction” of laws. Nunn said the early statutes recognized a fundamental “Anglo-American tradition against military intervention in civilian affairs” except “as a tool of last resort.”
The president argues Minnesota officials and citizens are impeding U.S. law by protesting his agenda and the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Customs and Border Protection officers. Yet early statutes also defined circumstances for the law as unrest “too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course” of law enforcement.
There are between 2,000 and 3,000 federal authorities in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, compared to Minneapolis, which has fewer than 600 police officers. Protesters' and bystanders' video, meanwhile, has shown violence initiated by federal officers, with the interactions growing more frequent since Renee Good was shot three times and killed.
“ICE has the legal authority to enforce federal immigration laws,” Nunn said. “But what they're doing is a sort of lawless, violent behavior” that goes beyond their legal function and “foments the situation” Trump wants to suppress.
“They can't intentionally create a crisis, then turn around to do a crackdown,” he said, adding that the Constitutional requirement for a president to “faithfully execute the laws” means Trump must wield his power, on immigration and the Insurrection Act, “in good faith.”
Courts have blocked some of Trump's efforts to deploy the National Guard, but he'd argue with the Insurrection Act that he does not need a state's permission to send troops.
That traces to President Abraham Lincoln, who held in 1861 that Southern states could not legitimately secede. So, he convinced Congress to give him express power to deploy U.S. troops, without asking, into Confederate states he contended were still in the Union. Quite literally, Lincoln used the act as a legal basis to fight the Civil War.
Nunn said situations beyond such a clear insurrection as the Confederacy still require a local request or another trigger that Congress added after the Civil War: protecting individual rights. Ulysses S. Grant used that provision to send troops to counter the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists who ignored the 14th and 15th amendments and civil rights statutes.
During post-war industrialization, violence erupted around strikes and expanding immigration — and governors sought help.
President Rutherford B. Hayes granted state requests during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 after striking workers, state forces and local police clashed, leading to dozens of deaths. Grover Cleveland granted a Washington state governor's request — at that time it was a U.S. territory — to help protect Chinese citizens who were being attacked by white rioters. President Woodrow Wilson sent troops to Colorado in 1914 amid a coal strike after workers were killed.
Federal troops helped diffuse each situation.
Banks stressed that the law then and now presumes that federal resources are needed only when state and local authorities are overwhelmed — and Minnesota leaders say their cities would be stable and safe if Trump's feds left.
As Grant had done, mid-20th century presidents used the act to counter white supremacists.
Franklin Roosevelt dispatched 6,000 troops to Detroit — more than double the U.S. forces in Minneapolis — after race riots that started with whites attacking Black residents. State officials asked for FDR's aid after riots escalated, in part, Nunn said, because white local law enforcement joined in violence against Black residents. Federal troops calmed the city after dozens of deaths, including 17 Black residents killed by local police.
Once the Civil Rights Movement began, presidents sent authorities to Southern states without requests or permission, because local authorities defied U.S. civil rights law and fomented violence themselves.
Dwight Eisenhower enforced integration at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas; John F. Kennedy sent troops to the University of Mississippi after riots over James Meredith's admission and then pre-emptively to ensure no violence upon George Wallace's “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” to protest the University of Alabama's integration.
“There could have been significant loss of life from the rioters” in Mississippi, Nunn said.
Lyndon Johnson protected the 1965 Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery after Wallace's troopers attacked marchers' on their first peaceful attempt.
Johnson also sent troops to multiple U.S. cities in 1967 and 1968 after clashes between residents and police escalated. The same thing happened in Los Angeles in 1992, the last time the Insurrection Act was invoked.
Riots erupted after a jury failed to convict four white police officers of excessive use of force despite video showing them beating a Rodney King, a Black man. California Gov. Pete Wilson asked President George H.W. Bush for support.
Bush authorized about 4,000 troops — but after he had publicly expressed displeasure over the trial verdict. He promised to “restore order” yet directed the Justice Department to open a civil rights investigation, and two of the L.A. officers were later convicted in federal court.
President Donald Trump answers questions after signing a bill that returns whole milk to school cafeterias across the country, in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
