The Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers will play each other in Australia on Thursday, Sept. 10, and the outcome could hinge on something rarely discussed before NFL games.
Travel strategy.
The 49ers will have been in Melbourne for a week when the game kicks off at 10:30 a.m. Friday local time (8:35 p.m. ET Thursday in the U.S.).
By contrast, the Rams arrived in Melbourne on Thursday morning (local time), about 24 hours before kickoff.
"I think it's absolutely fascinating and I'm really curious as to how this is going to play out and who's going to win," Fariha Abbasi-Feinberg, president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, told USA TODAY Sports.
The first regular-season NFL game to be played in Australia is part of the league's strategy
to expand its global fan base. But the 17-hour time difference between Melbourne and California’s time zone and the team's divergent approaches is giving sleep experts a chance to see how the body adjusts to a massive time difference under different conditions.
"Typically as sleep doctors, we advise that if you have a big event, you get there with plenty of time to acclimate to the new schedule," Abbasi-Feinberg said. "So the idea that the 49ers went a week ago, that would be conventional wisdom to get there, get adjusted to the schedule there. It's not just about the sleep, it's about the eating, the training, and the sleep sort of all goes together. And so that is the conventional wisdom.
"Now, what the Rams are doing I think is very interesting."
Why Rams' strategy could work. Or fail.
On the face of it, the Rams' strategy of swooping into Melbourne 24 hours before kickoff might look risky. But Abbasi-Feinberg said the plan appears to be evident.
Sleep on the fight to Melbourne and keep on the California schedule. (When the game kicks off at 10:35 a.m. Friday in Melbourne, it will be 5:35 p.m. Thursday in California.)
"I think they're banking on keeping their circadian rhythms aligned with California time and not doing any switcheroo at all," Abbasi-Feinberg said. "I think it's really an interesting idea to not switch your rhythm.
"Honestly, when you have people who work night shifts, we often tell them on the weekends, try to keep that same schedule. And often it's very difficult for people to do that because they have family obligations, social obligations, et cetera. So in a way, that's what (the Rams are) doing, is they're keeping their regular schedule in a sense."
But can they get adequate sleep?
The Rams and the 49ers each chartered Airbus A380 planes, according to the California Post, which included individual lay-flat beds.
"They're not going to be sitting in coach with their head dropped a little half U-shaped pillow. So that's not who we're talking about," Abbasi-Feinberg said. "We're talking about elite athletes who are going to be given the best sleep opportunity on the airplane.
"And so I think they can probably get reasonable sleep. It's still not going to be normal sleep in my mind, probably. There's enough disruptions unless they can make the whole plane black out, no dinging, nobody misbehaving in any way."
"And," she added with mirth, "there's no guarantees on that, of course."
'We have to stay curious'
The Rams, who are favored to win the 2027 Super Bowl, are 3.5-point favorites to beat the 49ers in Australia.
The scoreboard might help determine which team chose the best travel strategy, but Abbasi-Feinberg offered some final thoughts.
"Now, if the 49ers do incredibly much better than the Rams, then the question is, is it really their circadian rhythm and their sleep?" she said. "Is it the team? What exactly is, why did they improve or not? But I think it's very different what they're doing and therefore very interesting from a scientific viewpoint.
"I think that the tried-and-true idea of getting someplace early and getting adjusted is the right thing because the human body is very adaptable, but it takes time to acclimate. So I think, to me, that makes more sense, but this other approach is so radically different that I think we have to stay curious and see how it goes."
But already, Abbasi-Feinberg said, the game has spurred converation about circadian rhythms, which the Cleveland Clinic describes as the internal body clock and the pattern your body follows based on a 24-hour day.
"My hope is that it opens their eyes to how much our schedules affect how we perform," she said, "whether that's adjusting shift work, traveling for a big business presentation or even just sleeping in too long on the weekend, which can affect our Monday morning performance.
"That is about so much more than a game."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Could vastly different travel plans decide Rams-49ers season opener?
