Saints Upended by Steelers, 16-10, Fall to 2-5 Heading into Bye Week

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The New Orleans Saints made their trip to Paris memorable, just not the way fans would have wanted it to be, as they fell to Pittsburgh in the first-ever NFL game played in France, 16-10.

It was a story of a defense that couldn't stop the run and an offense that couldn't get their running game started.

Offense Passes Well...

Though quarterback Tyler Shough had a decent day passing, going 30-for-38 for 278-yards and a touchdown, he also threw his first red zone interception, halting a promising drive that could have given the Saints the lead.

Leading all receivers was veteran running back Alvin Kamara with seven receptions for 57-yards. Rookie receiver Barion Brown had three catches for 57-yards including his 49-yarder deep down the middle.

PLAY ACTION SHOUGH 🎯

📺: NFL NETWORK pic.twitter.com/jdPrJDriId
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) October 25, 2026

...but Rushes Abysmally

The Saints had an embarrassingly bad day on the ground, rushing for 18-total yards on the day. The leading rusher Shough, whose 3-carries netted him 7-yards on the ground.

"We just weren't able to get any movement (along the front line)," head coach Kellen Moore said after the game, "And creating increases in the opportunities in the run game today, I think certainly that's an important aspect of this thing. When you have a day like today, 17 runs for 18 yards, it's gonna be hard to win football games doing that. And so while there's some other things, I think we're real positive for our football team. We weren't able to get that done. Tyler's got a couple scrambles in there, and so it wasn't good enough. We had to throw the ball a number of times, and we gotta get it done. We just gotta really dig in and solve this thing."

Defense Holds its Own, Except on the Ground

Though the Saints defense played well for most of the game overall, keeping veteran quarterback Aaron Rodgers to a 19-for-30 day for only 212-yards and a single touchdown, sacking Rodgers three times. The Saints Carl Granderson and Chase Young split the sacks, getting 1.5-apiece.

The Steelers piled up 343-yards total in the game compared with the Saints 281. Almost half of the Steelers' yardage was on the ground, as Pittsburgh garnered 148 rushing. Jaylen Warren was the main cog in that running wheel, rushing 18-times for 101-yards. His longest was a 29-yarder in the contest.

Bye Week, Work to be Done

Now the Saints take a mid-season break before entertaining Cleveland in the Caesar's Superdome on November 8th, and Moore believes he and his team will be able to solve the issues plaguing them.

"I think there's certainly an opportunity to find those solutions," Moore shared. "We gotta dig into it, we gotta evaluate it, we gotta take the emotion out of it. I think that's the challenge of the NFL seasons is we're all frustrated and there's a lot of emotions with it. And you gotta take the emotion out of it and truly just evaluate it and find what the next steps are."

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