When the regular-season schedule was released for the Rams earlier this year, it was hard not to notice their difficult travel situation with the AFC and NFC East both on the docket. As a West Coast team, traveling to the East Coast is never easy – especially when those games kick off at 1 p.m. ET.
The Rams have two such games coming up in the next two weeks, visiting the Eagles and Bills in Weeks 2 and 3. They requested to have two East Coast games in back-to-back weeks before the NFL made the schedule, expecting to stay out east rather than traveling back and forth to L.A.
Unfortunately, that plan will no longer work. Due to the pandemic, the NFL has put in travel restrictions with regards to staying in hotel rooms and other protocols. And so the Rams are calling an audible on their next two weeks of travel.
They’ll go out to Philadelphia and return home after Sunday’s game, and then travel back to Buffalo the following week – thus racking up the air miles through the end of September.
“We’ll just travel the day before and really what we’ve learned – especially with some of the parameters, like if you were to stay in Philly and practice for the week, with guys having to stay in their hotel rooms, you’d almost say, ‘Alright, I would rather substitute that, being able to have them sleep in their own bed. We maybe get up a little bit earlier and adjust to a rhythm,’” McVay told reporters Monday. “That’s where I even think just for the mindset of having practice, training camp a lot in the mornings, where you’re used to peaking at 10 a.m. in our heads, which is what that 1 o’clock game will be each of the next two weeks in Philly and Buffalo. So, we’ll just travel the day before and just for the mental approach as well. Not keeping guys cooped up in a hotel room with just all the restrictions with what corona entails, is the thought process behind that.”
It’s certainly not an ideal situation, and not at all what the Rams were hoping for when the schedule was released. In recent years, they’ve set up what resembles a training camp atmosphere when traveling to the East Coast, doing so in both Jacksonville and Atlanta before traveling to London in 2017 and 2019, respectively.
But, as McVay said, players would have to be cooped up in their hotel rooms due to COVID-19 protocols, which may be worse than flying back and forth from L.A. to the East Coast twice in the next two weeks.
McVay doesn’t plan to change the Rams’ practice schedule too much, keeping things consistent as they prepare for the Eagles and Bills. Getting players’ and coaches’ mental clocks set before those games could be a challenge because of the three-hour time difference, but McVay doesn’t sound overly worried.
“I’m going to keep it consistent. We end up practicing earlier on Fridays anyways,” he said. “One of the days, we might end up having the meetings a little bit earlier on Friday and Saturday, than what we’re normally accustomed to, just because we’ll have to travel a little bit earlier on Saturday. But, I think getting into that rhythm is as important as anything and guys being ready to peak at the right time. What we’ve learned too, when you talk about just your circadian rhythm, it takes a couple of weeks anyways. So, I think a lot of it is your mental approaching and the guys’ ability to say, ‘You know what? I feel good. I’m not going to allow this to be a distraction or an excuse for why we’re not ready to roll at 10 a.m. – in our head – in Philly and Buffalo.’”
The Rams will travel the second-most air miles in the NFL this season, with the Seahawks flying the most and San Francisco the third-most. It’s a downside of playing on the West Coast, especially when the AFC and NFC East end up on the schedule.