Seven days of adjustment against fifteen hours in a seat
San Francisco landed in Melbourne a week ago. They have practised there, slept there, and mostly wrestled the jet lag into submission.
The Rams are still in California. Wheels up Tuesday night, fifteen hours in the air, on the ground Thursday morning local time. They play Friday morning.
Same game, two completely opposite theories about how to prepare for it. And it happens to be an NFC West divisional opener staged about as far from the United States as the NFL can manage.
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McVay has heard enough about the flight
Sean McVay repeated on Sunday that this is a business trip and nothing else. He is running the same schedule the Rams use for a normal road game, where they fly Friday night and play Sunday.
“Sleep through the night, then get there, and we’ve got a bit of a rhythm,” he said. “The biggest thing for me is making sure they know everything we’re doing is what we believe is best.”
Then the patience ran out. “What gives me confidence is that I’m not going to make it a big deal. We’ve got a lot of travel to do, but let’s be ready when that three-hour window comes around. That’s it. Spending ages talking about it, I get your questions, but I’ve told you what our approach is.”
8,000 miles, 17 time zones, a 10:35am kickoff
Los Angeles to Melbourne is just under 8,000 miles, close to 13,000 kilometres. The clock there runs 17 hours ahead of California.
Kickoff is 10:35am Friday in Melbourne, which is 8:35pm Thursday on the US east coast and 2:35am Friday in France. Nothing else on the NFL calendar starts at an hour like that.
The football matters too. Both teams went 12-5 last season and both watched Seattle take the division at 14-3 before winning Super Bowl LX in February.
Friday morning tells us whose travel plan survived contact.
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