Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has the most diverse passport in the NFL, regardless of his trip to Egypt during mandatory minicamp in 2024 or wherever he goes to do ayahuasca. Rodgers, who didn’t play in a foreign country until 2022, has now started games in England, Ireland, and France.
After Sunday’s 16-10 win over the Saints in Paris, Rodgers told reporters that the latest Collective Bargaining Agreement could have included a full-blown international week, with 16 games in 16 foreign locations.
“The reach of the league is fantastic, and I think I always wanted to be a part of it,” Rodgers said, via Garrett Podell of CBS Sports. “I think it’d have been phenomenal for the game. Now, the owners wanted to push for 17 games for the extra revenue because they care so much about player safety, but it would have been nice.”
Seventeen regular-season games and a full week of international games are not mutually exclusive, on the surface. However, even though Rodgers apparently would have been in favor of a full-blown international week, plenty of players would not be thrilled about playing one game per year in another country every year. (Even though 16 international games seems inevitable in the next CBA.)
Rodgers still wants to see an international week, even as he finishes what he insists will be his final NFL season.
“I think there are great opportunities for expansion in those things,” Rodgers said. “It’d be awesome to see them, you know, have an international week because I think it’s great for the game and the expansion of the game. And I wish there was a mandate, though, from the league [that] they would have to open up their pocketbooks too, and they’re maybe a little tight on money and stuff. I think they should mandate every team coming over Sunday or Monday to really enjoy the culture and the place you’re going. You could do events in those cities and outreach stuff and community work. But they won’t because they’re tight.”
Although Rodgers and I don’t see eye to eye on various subjects, I’ll agree with him wholeheartedly on that point. The league is, to put it kindly, extremely careful with money.
Still, it’s hard to imagine all 16 international games being placed in the same week. The early-morning window for the European games has the potential to become a full-blown broadcast package. Likewise, jamming all 16 international games would limit cities like London to only two games for the season — one at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and one at Wembley Stadium.
Bottom line? Sixteen international games are coming. But it seems unlikely that all 16 international games would be played in the same week.
Saints Clips
Steelers running back Jaylen Warren has been the focal point of the offense this season, and it was no different today against the Saints in Paris.
Warren made big plays both running the ball and catching passes out of the backfield as the Steelers won 16-10.
On a day when both quarterbacks, Aaron Rodgers and Tyler Shough, were fine but not spectacular, the difference was the running game: Warren and Rico Dowdle consistently picked up yardage against the Saints’ defense, while Saints running backs Alvin Kamara and Kendre Miller could do nothing against the Steelers’ defense.
Warren finished with 18 carries for 101 yards and three catches for 36 yards. Dowdle added nine carries for 41 yards and six catches for 45 yards.
Kamara had six carries for five yards and Miller had eight carries for six yards against a Steelers front that was dominant all game. Steelers linebacker Patrick Queen had a big day.
Rodgers also made his presence felt running the ball, with an eight-yard run on third-and-6 just before the two-minute warning to keep the Steelers’ game-clinching drive alive.
In addition to losing the game, the Saints lost safety Justin Reid left the game with a concussion, and running back CJ Donaldson left the game with a shoulder injury.
Saints wide receiver Barion Brown had a big day in a losing effort, leading the team with 57 receiving yards and also having a 42-yard kickoff return and 20-yard punt return.
The win improves the Steelers’ record to 5-2 and they’re in the thick of the race in the very competitive AFC North. The Saints fall to 2-5, and they’re not out of it in the NFC South.
The last play of the first half today in Paris saw the Steelers’ offense have to rush off the field after Aaron Rodgers was sacked on third down with no timeouts remaining, and the Steelers’ field goal team had to rush onto the field.
But despite the somewhat chaotic scene, Chris Boswell hit a 47-yard field goal as time expired on the first half, and the Steelers lead 13-10.
It’s been a back-and-forth battle that saw Rodgers throw for 164 yards and a touchdown in the first half, and Saints quarterback Tyler Shough throw for 152 yards and a touchdown. Shough came into the game with broken bones in his left hand, and during the game he appeared to be getting his right hand examined by the medical staff as well, but he hasn’t shown any ill effects.
Although it’s officially a Saints home game, t’s a largely pro-Steelers crowd in Paris for the NFL’s first regular-season game in France. And those fans liked how the first half ended.
Maybe the words “clear and obvious” get lost in translation into French.
That’s the only explanation for why the replay review process in Paris today overturned what appeared to be Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt strip-sacking Saints quarterback Tyler Shough.
Watt hit Shough, knocked the ball loose and came up with it when they both fell to the ground, and the officials on the field immediately ruled it a fumble that Watt recovered. But an expedited replay review overturned it to a sack and Shough down by contact.
That’s not the way it looked, and it certainly didn’t look so clear and obvious to justify the immediate overturn from the expedited review.
Two plays later, the Saints kicked a field to tie the score 3-3.
On the next drive, however, Pittsburgh re-took the lead, on a quick drive that saw Aaron Rodgers hit DK Metcalf downfield for a 51-yard pass, and then throw a four-yard touchdown pass to Darnell Washington. That touchdown pass was the 540th of Rodgers’ career, moving him ahead of Peyton Manning and into third in NFL history, behind only Tom Brady and Drew Brees.
The Steelers lead 10-3.
The Steelers’ offense has revolved around running back Jaylen Warren all season, and in the early going today in Paris it’s no different.
The Steelers received the opening kickoff and marched down the field on the first possession of the game with Warren carrying three times for 43 yards, including a big 29-yard run. Warren also caught the Steelers’ only completed pass on their opening drive, a three-yarder from Aaron Rodgers.
Rodgers tried to hit DK Metcalf in the end zone on third-and-goal, but it came up incomplete, and the Steelers settled for a Chris Boswell 28-yard field goal.
It’s a 3-0 Steelers lead early in the NFL’s first-ever game in France.
As Aaron Rodgers prepares to become the first quarterback in NFL history to play in four different countries, he’s on the verge of taking over third place on the all-time touchdown pass list.
Via NBC Sports research, Rodgers needs only one more to break a tie with Hall of Famer Peyton Manning for No. 3. Rodgers and Manning are currently tied at 539.
Rodgers likely will be stuck at No. 3, given his plan to retire after the season. He needs 32 (when I taped the attached video my math skills had me thinking it was 22) to catch Hall of Famer Drew Brees with 571. Future Hall of Famer Tom Brady holds the all-time record at 649.
In six games this season, Rodgers has 12 touchdown passes and five interceptions. For his career, his 539 touchdown passes are offset by 128 interceptions, which translates to a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 4.21.
More importantly, the Steelers are trying to win their third game in a row after starting 2-2. A victory in Paris would put them at 5-2 and, possibly, all alone in first place in the AFC North (if the Browns and Ravens both lose on Sunday).
The NFL’s sudden embrace of the “No Fun League” dynamic resulted in a rash of fines that were replaced with a new approach to discipline for celebrations. Under the revised rules, a couple of Saints players were fined for a celebration in the third quarter of the Week 6 win over the Giants.
The NFL fined defensive end Chase Young and defensive lineman Christen Miller $14,926 and $11,915, respectively, for a “violent gesture.”
It happened with 36 seconds left in the third quarter. The TV copy of the game doesn’t reveal the specific incident.
Regardless, the fines were imposed. And the players possibly will appeal.
The league and the NFL Players Association announced earlier this month that certain celebrations will be immediately subject to fines, including "[g]estures that depict violence, including the use of guns or other weapons, or gang-related signs.” For celebrations that land in a gray area, the league will communicate with the player before fining him if/when it happens again.
It’s too late to turn back now.
With kickoff to Sunday’s game between the Steelers and Saints in Paris less than 13 hours away, as of this posting, the plan continues to be full speed ahead for Steelers-Saints at Stade de France. Even if the league is potentially going to be stepping into a steaming pile of merde.
Via Mark Maske of Front Office Sports, the game remains set for a 9:30 a.m. ET kickoff after another day of local protests in Paris. More than 400,000 participated in the demonstrations, which resulted in more than 1,000 arrests. Per the Associated Press, a march that started peacefully ended with protesters throwing fireworks and other objects at police. They responded with tear gas, sound grenades, and water cannons.
The question remains whether protestors will target the NFL game, in an effort to send a clear international message. No matter how secure the stadium may be, the path to the venue’s security perimeter may not be.
Hopefully, there will be no incidents. It’s still a calculated risk for the NFL, one that many would regard as unnecessary.
For the NFL, the necessity to play flows from the ongoing obsession to export the game to other countries. If something occurs, it will be impossible for the league to shrug and to say, “We didn’t know that could happen.” And it will throw a wrench into the plan to globalize the game.
Even without any specific problems on Sunday, the situation underscores the realities of potentially putting teams in other countries, with other governments and other citizenries that could eventually complicate the effort to play all games as scheduled.
For now, the league doesn’t care. It only sees one thing — the possibility of transforming a billion-dollar business into a trillion-dollar behemoth if fans in other countries become as passionate about pro football as Americans are.
Safety DeShon Elliott is back on the Steelers’ active roster.
Elliott has not played this season due to hamstring and knee injuries that led the team to put him on injured reserve in August, but he’s set to make his debut against the Saints on Sunday after being activated from injured reserve.
Elliott was limited to five games last season by those injuries. He had 38 tackles, a sack, an interception and a forced fumble.
The Steelers also announced that they have elevated wide receivers Brandon Johnson and Brandon Smith from the practice squad. Ben Skowronek has been ruled out, which leaves DK Metcalf, Germie Bernard, and Kaden Wetjen as the healthy wideouts on the active roster in Pittsburgh.
The Saints announced that they have elevated a pair of players from the practice squad for Sunday’s game against the Steelers.
Wide receiver Cedric Tillman and offensive tackle Easton Kilty have been summoned to the active roster for the matchup in Paris. Both players will revert back after the game.
Tillman has been elevated for two other games, so the Saints will need to sign him to the active roster if they want him back for another game. He has played five offensive snaps and one special teams snap so far this year.
Kilty played on special teams in the Saints’ Week 5 loss to the Vikings.
