The Pittsburgh Steelers are in Europe for the first NFL game in France. They’ll face the New Orleans Saints in a Week 7 matchup on Oct. 25 at Stade de France outside Paris.
First-year coach Mike McCarthy’s team is riding high after wins in three of its past four outings. The first road win of the season came in Week 6 at Tampa Bay, and now the Steelers will hope to take advantage of a Saints team that has mostly struggled in the early going but secured a solid win against the New York Giants before traveling abroad.
Here are USA TODAY Sports' top storylines to watch as the international game unfolds with a special 9:30 a.m. ET kickoff on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
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Will the Steelers come out flat?
That wasn't the case a year ago, when the Steelers traveled to face the Minnesota Vikings in Dublin, Ireland.
Kenneth Gainwell scored a one-yard touchdown on the second drive, and DK Metcalf found the end zone on the first play of the ensuing Steelers drive with an electrifying 80-yard catch-and-run from quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
The Steelers started slowly on the road a week ago, however, falling behind 13-0 and 16-3 before rallying in the fourth quarter to set up an overtime win over Tampa Bay.
Like last season, the Steelers are opting not to spend the week abroad and instead shipped off for Paris on Thursday, so it will be interesting to see if they can build on their experience of playing abroad. The Dublin game was their first outside the United States since 2013.
Can DK Metcalf maintain momentum?
The win over Tampa Bay marked only the second time the veteran receiver has caught more than five passes in a game as a Steeler. He finished the day with 11 catches on 15 targets for 93 yards.
The team certainly imagined more production when it gave up a second-round NFL draft pick to acquire him, then signed him to a lucrative contract extension during the 2025 offseason.
Metcalf does not always need to rack up a large volume of catches to be effective. His best day in terms of yardage came against Cleveland on Oct. 1, when he took his five catches for an explosive 115 yards.
However, his ability to take over the Tampa Bay game late, as he did, is something every Steelers fan will want to see more of moving forward. That’s especially true against a Saints pass defense that ranks 25th in the league, allowing an average of 239.7 yards per game through the air.
Rookie Germie Bernard's continued development will be front and center, too. The second-round NFL draft pick snagged 11 passes for 87 yards and the game-winning touchdown against Tampa. If he can continue to establish himself as a viable alternative to Metcalf, that should significantly boost the latter’s production by drawing some coverage away from him.
Is pass defense becoming a genuine strength?
The Steelers enter Week 7 ranked seventh in passing yards allowed per game at 204.3. That is their best showing in quite some time.
You have to go back to 2021 for the Steelers to show up in the top 10 league-wide over a full season.
In Mike Tomlin’s final season as Steelers coach in 2025, the defense ranked 29th against the pass, allowing 243.9 yards per game.
First-year defensive coordinator Patrick Graham has steered hard into giving opponents mostly zone looks. Only four teams have used zone defenses more often in 2026, according to Sharp Football Analysis. Only six teams have played less man defense.
It’s been a noticeable shift from the end of the Tomlin era, when the Steelers continued trending toward more man-to-man defense.
The question now is whether and when other teams will adjust and start attacking this defense in different ways. So while the start has been encouraging, the coming weeks will tell us how durable the early results truly are.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: DK Metcalf has prime chance to spark Steelers offense in Paris vs. Saints
