Pittsburgh Steelers at New Orleans Saints
Sunday, October 25, 2026
9:30 AM ET, Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France
Pittsburgh is a 3.5-point favorite over New Orleans with a total of 44.5 for the first regular-season NFL game ever played in France. My play is Steelers -3.5.
The Saints haven’t slept in their own beds in a while. They won 34-27 in New York, nearly coughed up a 34-10 lead in the final seven minutes, and flew straight to Paris from the Meadowlands. Kellen Moore called the week “a continuation of an extended trip.” That’s a polite way of saying his team is living out of a suitcase while trying to fix a run defense that can’t stop anybody.
The Saints’ run defense is the worst in football right now. That’s not a hot take, it’s the tape and the numbers. New Orleans ranks last in the league at stopping the run on a down-to-down basis, giving up 4.8 yards a carry and a league-worst 1.8 rushing touchdowns a game. Overall, this defense allows 29.7 points per game, 31st in the NFL. Pittsburgh doesn’t run often, but when it does, it gets results: the Steelers rank top five in rushing efficiency, and Jaylen Warren is ripping off 5.5 yards a pop with 460 yards on the season. If Mike McCarthy simply hands Warren the ball 20 times instead of letting Aaron Rodgers fling it 39 times a game, this thing tilts fast.
Rodgers doesn’t need to be a hero. Good, because the 42-year-old hasn’t been one through the air. Pittsburgh’s passing attack sits in the bottom six in efficiency, and Rodgers has a 61.4% completion rate. But he’s been clutch when it counts. Last week he dragged Pittsburgh back from 13 down in Tampa and won it in overtime on a 6-yard touchdown to Germie Bernard. A Saints defense that lets opponents convert 44.6% of their third downs (27th in the league) is a nice place for an old quarterback to get comfortable.
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Shough is playing hurt behind a shaky line. Tyler Shough has matched Rodgers’ 12 touchdowns and five picks, but he’s doing it after breaking two bones in his left hand, a direct result of a leaky offensive line. He’s posted season-low passing yards in the two full games since. Now he gets a Pittsburgh defense that ranks fifth in EPA per play allowed, the stat that tracks how much damage each snap does to an offense’s scoring chances. The Steelers hold opponents to 5.0 yards a play and give up touchdowns on only half of red-zone trips.
Why I could be wrong. This line already moved two full points, from Pittsburgh -1.5 at the open to -3.5, so the easy money is gone. The Saints have quietly covered all three of their road games, and their red-zone offense scores touchdowns 84% of the time, second best in the league. If Pittsburgh’s pass game sputters early and McCarthy abandons the run, Shough has enough weapons, starting with Chris Olave (580 yards), to keep this inside a field goal. And international games have a way of getting weird.
The bottom line. Pittsburgh has the best unit on the field (its defense) and the most lopsided matchup (its ground game against that Saints front). New Orleans is 0-3 at home and now plays a “home” game an ocean away from the Superdome. I’ll take the team that does the one thing the Saints can’t handle.
Projected score: Steelers 26, Saints 19
The Pick: Steelers -3.5
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