Much has been made about the contrasting travel plans for the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers as they’re set to square off in Australia for the season opener next week. The 49ers are leaving this Wednesday, whereas the Rams are leaving…sometime after that.
Sean McVay hasn’t said exactly when the team is heading to Melbourne, but it’s been reported that they plan to land the morning before kickoff. Considering Melbourne is 17 hours ahead of Los Angeles and it’s around a 16-hour flight, that’s not exactly an easy trip to make.
Not only is McVay keeping the team’s exact plans under wraps from the media, but he hasn’t even addressed his players about it.
“I haven't done that yet, so that means I'm not talking to you about it either,” he said
jokingly during Sunday’s press conference.
When does he plan to talk to the team about it?
“Yeah, I'll probably do it the week of the game so don’t ask me until then,” he joked again. “Here’s what I would tell you though. I know we've laughed and had some good fun interactions about it, but I do want to be able – I think they have a loose idea of what we're doing but I do still think it is appropriate in terms of the trajectory. I want to be able to talk to them about it, but we're leaving later than most people would probably expect.”
The Rams landed in London the day before last year’s game against the Jaguars and crushed their opponent, 35-7. They spent very little time abroad before kickoff, and they’re taking a similar approach this time around.
“This is a little bit how we travel east,” Les Snead said on the “Pat McAfee Show” Monday. “We did it when we went to London last year. I know Australia you go a different direction than when you go to London, but we’ve kind of done it this way before, so we’ll see if works going, I guess you’d call it west.”
Kickoff is set for 8:35 p.m. ET on Thursday, Sept. 10, which is 10:35 a.m. local time in Melbourne. The Rams will have some extra time to rest with a Monday night game in Week 2, but it's not as if they'll have the benefit of a full bye after returning from Australia.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: Sean McVay still hasn't talked to Rams players about Australia travel plans
