The game went off without incident at Stade de France despite a week of buildup over civil unrest in the country.
The NFL got its Paris game in without a hitch. The Steelers beat the Saints 16-10 at Stade de France on Sunday, the sixth of nine international games on this season's schedule, and the whole affair passed without delay or incident despite days of public hand-wringing about recent civil unrest and violence in France, including comments from President Donald Trump.
As it turned out, the controversy lived entirely in the lead-up. That mirrors what happened before the Cowboys-Ravens game in Brazil in Week 3, when a week of chatter about field conditions proved far more dramatic than anything that happened on the field. Once the ball was kicked off at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, 2:30 p.m. in Paris, it was simply football.
The result keeps the NFL's global expansion rolling along, with teams and fans in Paris getting a straightforward afternoon of football rather than the complications some had predicted. The league still has more international games left on this season's slate.