Traveling 16 hours to another country is never easy, let alone having to play a football game about a day after arriving. But for the Los Angeles Rams, they’re trying to make it as easy as possible for their players as they embark on their journey to Australia for the season opener this week.
Their opponent, the San Francisco 49ers, have been in Melbourne since last week, but the Rams are taking a different approach. Sean McVay confirmed that the Rams are leaving on Tuesday night, which means it will be Thursday morning Australia time when they touch down.
Kickoff is set for Friday morning at 10:35 a.m. local time, giving them a day to acclimate.
“I look at it as Friday evening,” McVay said, comparing it to the schedule of a traditional Sunday
game. “It’s Tuesday night for you guys, but it would be the equivalent of Friday evening. Sleep through the night and then we'll get there and we have kind of a rhythm.”
Players shouldn’t have too much trouble sleeping through the night on the plane because they’ll each have their own lay-flat bed.
“Full lay-out sleep beds. They've got full lay-out to beds, all of our players have that,” McVay said. “You guys love this trip thing, man. Yeah, it is cool. But it's a big plane, everybody will be able to get fully extended and lay out and be able to get their rest.”
McVay has been asked regularly about the itinerary and travel plans with the Rams flying out of L.A. so late, and he’s about ready to be done talking about it.
“If you guys ask me any more questions about it,” he said with a smile. “I'm tired of talking about this. I'll talk about the game. I'm excited about the game.”
Matthew Stafford isn’t lacking any confidence in the Rams’ approach. After using a similar plan last year when they went to London, he believes it’ll suit everyone well to spend as little time as possible in Melbourne before the game, avoiding the acclimation period with such a dramatic time difference.
“I feel like we're just keeping it as normal as we possibly can,” he said Sunday. “Obviously, we have a normal day today. Sunday [is] like a Wednesday for us in our world. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, hop on the plane and go. We obviously have experience with it doing it [in a] different direction, all that kind of stuff. I understand last year in London, but it felt like it worked out for us. The guys felt ready to play. I think guys enjoy being home and having the opportunity to obviously go play over there is really cool, but I feel confident in the way we're going about it. Guys will be ready to rock and roll come Friday morning.”
Davante Adams is less excited about the flight, it seems. While he said he has no concerns about the Rams’ approach, he knows it’s a long way to travel for a game.
That being said, he’s excited to see the crowd and the atmosphere in Melbourne at the Cricket Ground, which holds over 100,000 people.
“You don't want to have to travel that long to play a football game, but I'm excited to play football. If [there's] any game to be excited for, it's the first one, doing all of this for us. We get to get it out the way, the travel part of it, but once we get there I'm sure it'll be an amazing environment. It's always a little bit different playing in a different country. It'll be fun. I know [there] will be a lot of people in attendance. It's supposed to be like 100,000 or something like that. That'll be cool. I think once you get to play in a college-sized stadium, it doesn't really feel much different for the people playing in the game. There'll be a lot of support in there so it'll be fun.”
It won’t be long before the Rams put this travel talk behind them, though there will still probably be questions about how it’ll affect their preparation for the Giants in Week 2.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: Rams players will have 'full lay-out' beds on flight to Australia
