The first appearance by the Dallas Cowboys in Pittsburgh in eight years had to wait.
The start of Sunday night’s Pittsburgh Steelers home game against their longtime NFC nemesis was delayed by a storm that began passing through the area almost exactly at the scheduled start time of 8:20 p.m.
About an hour later, it was announced the game would kick off at 9:45 p.m. It was still raining — though not as heavily — when the game did begin.
It was announced at 8:13 p.m. that the game would not begin on time. Up until that point, players on both teams had gone through warmups as normal. When the delay was announced, stadium staff was preparing for the introductions of the Steelers starters.
It was exactly at the initially-scheduled kickoff time that fans at Acrisure Stadium were advised to leave the seating area and head to the concourses.
Lightning was spotted in the city. Rain began to fall approximately 8:25 p.m., quickly gaining in intensity.
It was the third time in about 10 months a Steelers game was delayed or postponed by weather. The Dec. 3 home game against the Arizona Cardinals was delayed twice because of lightning. A January playoff game between the Steelers and Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park, N.Y., was bumped back a day because of a blizzard in western New York.
Steelers-Cowboys is the only three-time Super Bowl matchup, but the teams rarely meet in the regular season. Dallas has only twice before played at what opened as Heinz Field in 2001; the Cowboys most recent game here was 2016.
Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.