NFL Plays Its Paris Game Without Delay or Incident

The NFL played its game Sunday as scheduled in Paris after a week of public conversation—including comments by President Donald Trump—about the recent civil unrest and violence in France.

The game was played at Stade de France without any incidents or delays as the Steelers beat the Saints, 16–10, in the sixth of the nine international games on the NFL’s slate for this season.

As with the week’s worth of public discussions about the field conditions that preceded the Cowboys-Ravens game in Brazil in Week 3, the buildup to the game produced far more drama about potential complications than game day itself.

“To be able to play in the first game in Paris in the league’s history is great,” Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers told reporters afterward.

It was about football—and about the NFL’s ever-burgeoning global ambitions—for the teams and fans Sunday in Paris. The game kicked off at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time (2:30 p.m. Paris time) and was carried by the NFL Network, now owned by Disney’s ESPN. An announced crowd of 78,488 fans watched inside the stadium.

“I know a lot of our team … had their families and friends here,” Steelers coach Mike McCarthy said during his postgame news conference. “So I know everybody really enjoyed Friday. But just with the uncertainty on Saturday, they kind of stayed close to the hotel. But France is a beautiful place. This is my first time here. We’d love the opportunity to someday … come back and enjoy it. My wife loves Paris. But it’s a beautiful country.”

The Steelers arrived in Paris on Friday. The Saints spent the entire week there.

“I said it earlier this week: I wish we could have come over and enjoyed the sights both in Ireland [last season] and in France for a little more time,” Rodgers said. “But it’s great the way the game is growing. And I feel like the fans were into it today, for sure. It probably helps there’s so many Pittsburgh fans, you know, kind of telling them when to cheer and stuff.

“…But I’ve enjoyed being part of the expansion of the league and thankful for these four international games I’ve played.”

Rodgers and fellow Steelers quarterbacks Mason Rudolph, Drew Allar, and Will Howard, plus quarterbacks coach Tom Arth, arrived at the stadium dressed in suits and similar hats that the team said in a social media post were by “order of the Peaky Blinders.”

Front Office Sports’s Amanda Christovich attended the game and wrote beforehand on Twitter/X: “Almost kickoff here in Paris for Saints-Steelers. Beautiful weather for the NFL’s first game in France. NFL and team houses were closed yesterday [because] of protests, but those areas weren’t disturbed. Some shops were boarded up, some police. But city center felt mostly normal.”

Reporter Nick Underhill, who covers the Saints, wrote on social media: “Getting the stadium was no problem by taxi. No signs of anything going on. Just absurd traffic.”

The stadium video boards showed videos with explanations in French of football concepts and terms, such as “interception,” “forced fumble,” and “fumble recovery.”

One on-field adjustment for the players, Rodgers said, involved figuring out where to see the play clock telling an offensive team and its quarterback how long they had to snap the ball before incurring a delay-of-game penalty.

“You’d look up at the clock from my vantage point under center, there was like eight different numbers,” Rodgers said. “And you’re like looking for the one that’s actually counting down, at one point. … I totally screwed that one up.”

But he also said, “What a great stadium this was. I felt like it’s really cool to be a part of. I thought the [playing] surface was good, the grass. I thought the environment was great. And just all the pomp and circumstance before, you know. … I thought the French anthem was, I thought, just so gorgeous, I mean, just really beautiful. And to hear the fans sing along, too, was a really cool moment, I thought.”

Police made nearly 1,000 arrests as more than 400,000 people across France participated Saturday in the ongoing protests over school funding and the cost of living. A mass march began peacefully, according to the AP, but ended with protesters throwing fireworks and other objects at police, who reportedly responded with tear gas, sound grenades, and water cannons.

Trump told reporters Friday outside the White House that “you worry about it,” adding that he “would have said the NFL could have probably postponed that match.”

Even so, many media members and others who were in France wrote on social media Saturday that their activities were mostly unaffected by the protests. They said they felt safe and, in some cases, said the only sentiment to not play the game as scheduled Sunday came from people who were in the U.S. French police did ask Paris Saint-Germain to reschedule Sunday’s match against Lyon to Monday.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell traveled to France following an owners meeting in New York last week that concluded Wednesday. Goodell, along with owners Gayle Benson of the Saints and Art Rooney II of the Steelers, met Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace in Paris.

Goodell and the NFL maintained throughout the week that the league planned to play the game  as scheduled. Goodell said he had spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who confirmed that conversation and told OutKick and Fox News that there was “no indication the game will be impacted in any way.”

The league planned to have a “heightened” security presence around the game and related events, NFL executive Peter O’Reilly said Tuesday at the owners meeting.

Rodgers spoke at great length during his postgame news conference Sunday about the NFL’s international efforts.

“The reach of the league is fantastic,” he said. “And I think I always wanted to be a part of it. I remember the 2011 CBA there was talk about, you know, more games, expanding the amount of international games. Didn’t really a whole lot until the [2020] CBA and there was talk about doing a week, an international week where you had games in 16 different places and you just added an extra bye week. So you’d play 16 regular season [games]. You’d have two bye weeks. One of those weeks would have been an international week. I think it’d have been phenomenal for the game.

“Now, the owners wanted to push for 17 games for the, you know, extra revenue because they care so much about player safety. But it would have been nice.”

And Rodgers had suggestions, of course.

“And I wish there was a mandate, though, from the league … I think they should mandate every team coming over Sunday or Monday to really enjoy the culture and the place you’re going. And you could do events in those cities and outreach stuff and community work. But they won’t because they’re tight [with money].”