By BOB LABRIOLA

Steelers.com

It's the fourth week of a five-week preseason, which means everybody is itching for the start of the games that count in the standings. In that sense, Sunday night's game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers could be seen as an appetizer.

The 8 p.m. game at Heinz Field will be televised nationally by NBC, it will pit the Steelers against an Eagles team that has won five division championships in the past six seasons, and it's a game for which Coach Mike Tomlin has prepared his team, almost to the degree of a regular season game.

So if the preseason is seen as a chance for players to audition, Sunday night is closer to a dress rehearsal.

"They've been in four NFC Championship games, a Super Bowl," said Tomlin about the Eagles. "They're one of the legendary giants in this era of the NFC. Those are the kind of opponents you like to play against this time of year when you're trying to find out who and what you are. We welcome that challenge."

To give his players their best chance to meet that challenge, Tomlin has conducted this week as close to a regular season week as possible. There was a modified game plan, and it was implemented during the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday practices.

"Not a complete body of work like we will do here in a couple weeks getting ready for the opener, but quite a bit more than we've done for the preseason," said Tomlin. "You've got to make decisions along those lines when you're talking about the preseason when you're installing and zeroing in on an opponent, you're not giving those guys an opportunity to compete and play Steelers vs. Steelers, as we like to say in training camp.

"To me that is what training camp is about. It's about seeing who can compete, giving guys things that they know they've been working on in the offseason to see who's capable of making plays and who is not. Things are a little different this week, we've broken camp, we got a simulated game-week here where we are game planning for an opponent to a degree, so it is some subtle differences."

And then on the other side of this game, Tomlin plans to use the Sunday-Thursday night schedule of the preseason's final week to mimic what the team will face in December when the Steelers play Jacksonville at home on a Sunday and then have a road game in St. Louis the following Thursday night.

Tomlin said the plan is to play the starters through the first half, and depending upon how that goes, then decisions will be made about getting the backups into the game. Ben Roethlisberger will be followed at quarterback by Charlie Batch, but Tomlin indicated his veteran backup will play only a short time to allow for more of an opportunity for Brian St. Pierre and/or Bryan Randall.

The starting offensive line will consist of Marvel Smith, Alan Faneca, Sean Mahan, Kendall Simmons and Willie Colon, and Tomlin said, "You'll see there will be guys rolling in and competing and playing. We want to make sure all of those men who have been talked about have an opportunity to show what they are capable of."

All NFL teams are required to reduce their rosters to 75 players by Tuesday afternoon, and this year the exemptions for NFL Europa players expired with this mandatory cut-down. This means the Steelers will be cutting 10 players before Tuesday afternoon, and so the game against the Eagles represents a final chance for many of them.

"I'm looking for the same thing from them that I am looking for from everybody, and that is that they continue to grow in terms of their game," said Tomlin about the guys who might be playing their final game in a Steelers uniform. "Technically, the level of execution, we have to continue to grow, we are a developing football team, and they are developing men. Whether they're been-there-done-that guys or guys on the bubble, it really doesn't matter. Every time we go out there and play in the stadiums on weekends, we're looking to keep it moving forward in terms of being a finished product."

INJURY REPORT: Tomlin said TE Jerame Tuman (back) and DE Derrick Jones (calf) won't play against the Eagles … Rookie C/G Darnell Stapleton, who had surgery to repair a torn meniscus cartilage in his knee before the preseason opener, will see his first action on Sunday night. "I look forward to seeing what he can do," said Tomlin.