October 25, 2026<\/a><\/p>\nThe win was the third in a row for the Steelers (5-2), setting up a showdown with the rival Cleveland Browns (5-2) next Sunday at Acrisure Stadium in which the winner will have sole possession of first place in the AFC North.<\/p>\n
The first NFL regular-season game in France was played under a blue Parisian sky after a weekend of rain and significant wind storms here.<\/p>\n
Warren finished with 137 yards from scrimmage, accounting for 36 of Aaron Rodgers\u2019 212 passing yards. Rodgers threw a touchdown pass to Darnell Washington as the Steelers racked up 345 yards of offense.<\/p>\n
The Steelers\u2019 other running back, Rico Dowdle, contributed 86 yards from scrimmage.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday was really about the run game,\u201d Rodgers said. \u201cI felt like we controlled the line of scrimmage with Jaylen and Rico. Those guys both had really nice games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew coming in we could run it against them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Saints came in ranked 30th in the NFL in rushing defense, and it showed. Warren had gains of 29, 26 and 15 yards in the first half alone after coming into the game with 568 yards from scrimmage over his previous four games.<\/p>\n
The tone was set almost immediately in regards to the Steelers\u2019 demeanor. On the second snap of the game, for the first time this season the Steelers deployed a \u201cjumbo\u201d package using a sixth offensive lineman (Spencer Anderson) as a tight end.<\/p>\n
Warren ran for 29 yards on that first play.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew what we knew about them,\u201d Warren said, \u201cand so we wanted to, you know, use our strengths against their weaknesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though that first drive produced only the first of thee Chris Boswell field goals, the Steelers took a lead and would never trail. More importantly, it sent a message that they were going to rely on physical play.<\/p>\n
That was the case on both sides of the ball. Aside from a 6-yard, third-quarter scramble by quarterback Tyler Shough, the Saints managed 12 rushing yards on 16 attempts. According to ESPN, it had been more than four years since an NFL team did not have at least one player rush for 10 or more yards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just had a mindset of stopping the run,\u201d said inside linebacker Patrick Queen, who had a game-high 10 tackles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew\u2026 if they had a run game, it was going to be tough to beat those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Queen\u2019s biggest play was what ended up being the final play of the game for the Steelers\u2019 defense. He sacked Shough on a third-and-10 from the New Orleans 40 with 6 minutes, 41 seconds left in the game.<\/p>\n
It capped a dominant finishing series for the Steelers defense. The Saints had the ball at their own 26 with 7:04 left in regulation and down only six points. With a first-and-10 at the 40, defensive linemen Yahya Black and Cameron Heyward batted down consecutive Shough passes. Then, Queen blitzed and brought down Shough.<\/p>\n
Leaning on the running game, the Steelers bled out the final 6 minutes. The biggest moment came when facing a third-and-6 from the New Orleans 34, Rodgers scrambled 8 yards for a first down to for all intents and purposes sealed the win.<\/p>\n
The Steelers\u2019 lone touchdown was set up by their second-longest play of the season, a fine 51-yard catch by DK Metcalf to the Saints\u2019 4 on a third-and-14 midway through the second quarter. Two plays later, Rodgers hit Darnell Washington near the left sideline in the end zone. The 6-foot-7, 300-plus pound tight end caught the ball over a largely helpless 5-11 New Orleans cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry, deftly getting two feet in bounds for a touchdown.<\/p>\n
Though Payton Wilson had an interception of Shough in the third quarter, the Steelers twice during the second quarter were initially ruled to have forced a Saints fumble while in the red zone, but each time a video review reversed it and allowed New Orleans to retain possession and get points. One was a T.J. Watt strip sack of Shough, the other when Queen tackled Saints running back Kendre Miller near the goal line, and Cole Holcomb forced what appeared to be a fumble.<\/p>\n
When it got overturned, New Orleans scored on a Shough pass to Devaughn Vele for a touchdown on the next play.<\/p>\n
That briefly tied the score at 10, but the Steelers were able to use the final 105 seconds of the half to get into range for a Boswell 47-yard field goal to make it 13-10 Steelers.<\/p>\n
They never relinquished their lead from there.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of guys played some really good football,\u201d Watt said. \u201cObviously, with the (travel) schedule time (zone) change, there\u2019s a lot of adversity there. So, to come away with the win is big time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 They flew 4,000 miles to what is arguably the most famous city in all of Europe,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314292,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-314291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}