It remains to be seen whether Aaron Rodgers will be the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback when they face his former team, the Green Bay Packers, on Oct. 26.

The NFL schedule makers didn’t hesitate to give that matchup the prime-time treatment even while the 41-year-old quarterback remains unsigned amid weighing the Steelers’ contract offer.

The Steelers-Packers matchup in Week 8 will be the national Sunday night football game televised by NBC. Rodgers spent his first 18 seasons with the Packers.

“If Aaron is the quarterback, it’s a great story,” said Mike North, the NFL’s vice president of broadcast planning. “If Aaron’s not the quarterback, it’s still Packers-Steelers. … We tried to play it down the middle. We don’t know any more than anyone else.”

Coming off a 10-7 season that ended with a five-game losing streak, including postseason, the Steelers were rewarded with four games that will be played in a prime-time window. The NFL announced its entire schedule Wednesday night.

“The assumption now is you play the hand you’re dealt, and Aaron Rodgers is not the quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers,” North said. “But their sustained success over the past decade, coach (Mike) Tomlin never has had a losing season, the Steelers have been playoff relevant late down the stretch, and they have a national fan base.

“Their body of work is what warranted the national television exposure for them. If a future Hall of Fame quarterback decides to play for the Steelers, it probably makes their schedule more interesting.”

Ten days before they face the Packers at Acrisure Stadium, the Steelers will play on Thursday night at Cincinnati. In Week 10, they will play Sunday night against the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium.

The final prime-time game is a “Monday Night Football” encounter Dec. 15 against the Miami Dolphins at Acrisure Stadium.

“The schedule was built for coach Tomlin and the Steelers,” North said.

The Steelers will open against Rodgers’ most recent team, the New York Jets, at 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 7. With Rodgers still unsigned, the NFL decided against giving that matchup a later time slot.

“If we knew for certain Aaron would be the quarterback for the Steelers, we may have done something a little different,” North said.

Steelers president Art Rooney II said his only complaint with the 17-game schedule is the Steelers playing a prime-time game on the West Coast against the Chargers. That makes for a Monday morning arrival in Pittsburgh, although the NFL did schedule a home game for the Steelers the following week.

“You want the perfect schedule,” said Hans Schroeder, the NFL’s executive vice president of media distribution. “We don’t get there, but we get pretty darn close.”

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