We all have our own routines and superstitions when it comes to traveling, and that’s apparent when you look at the way the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams planned their upcoming trips to Melbourne, Australia.
While Rams head coach Sean McVay’s team landed in Melbourne on Thursday morning, the day before the game set to start on Friday at 10:35 a.m. local time (8:35 p.m. ET on Thursday, Sept. 10). The Rams are only expected to spend one night in Melbourne, which is 17 hours ahead of Los Angeles, before flying home after the game.
“They have a loose idea of what we’re doing, but I do still think it is appropriate in terms of the trajectory,” McVay told reporters late in training camp, when asked if he’s told players the schedule. “I want to be able to talk to them about it, but we’re leaving later than most people would probably expect.”
That’s no surprise. McVay took a similar approach last year, when the Rams stayed in Baltimore for a week after his team’s victory over the Ravens in Week 6, flying to London from there for a Sunday game, a 35-7 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars. In all, the Rams spent a little over 30 hours in London for what McVay referred to as a business trip.
The Rams’ approach to flying abroad on the eve of an international game worked last season when they defeated the Jaguars in London behind Davante Adams’ four touchdown catches. (Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
The 49ers are on the other end of the spectrum. San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan and his team traveled to Australia last Thursday and arrived last week on Friday — a week before the game — to get better acclimated to their new surroundings in Melbourne, holding practices there in the lead-up to the game.
“It’s a big adjustment on the body,” Shanahan told reporters before the trip. “So, the recommendation for everybody has been to tell us when to go, and it’s made a lot of sense. And I know how our players feel also. I was a little bit on the fence. Science wasn’t, and what I was told. And our players weren’t at all. So that helped me get off the fence.”
San Francisco edge rusher Keion White said he would try to sleep the entire 16-hour flight.
“I don’t know if you can OD on melatonin, but I’m going to try,” White joked.
So, which team will be best prepared to perform?
I asked that question to Dr. Cheri Mah, a sleep expert based at Stanford University who specializes in the connections between sleep, performance, recovery and injury prevention. Mah helped establish a sleep curriculum with the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks for the past four years and worked with the Philadelphia Eagles during that team’s Super Bowl season in 2017.
Most recently, Mah helped prepare new Memphis head coach Charles Huff for his team’s late kickoff in Las Vegas against UNLV, a 27-21 victory for the Tigers over the Rebels. Mah says sleep is one of the most important things for an athlete’s recovery. Athletes should view sleep as an investment, with a good night’s sleep as the start of the day. Mah said she always looks at trips and breaks them down into preflight strategies, in-flight strategies and post-flight strategies.
“That’s what my biggest challenge is for the athletes and teams I work with,” Mah told me. “Making that small but powerful shift in how you invest in your sleep in what you do in the day, how your evening routine is structured and really setting up a sleep system for yourself, starting in the offseason.”
Mah explained the advantages of both approaches for the two teams, considering factors such as the direction and location of travel, how long they will be there, and what they need to do to get ready for the following game. Mah has not consulted with either the Rams or 49ers for this trip.
“For the Rams, the advantage of not changing the body clock — if that is what they’re trying to do by jetting in and jetting out — is their body clock when they’re playing in Australia would be at approximately 5 p.m. PT,” Mah said. “4 to 8 p.m. approximately in the afternoon/early evening is when performance is enhanced. Athletes perform physically the best during this period in the 24-hour day. So, that works to their advantage, given that game time will be right in that sweet spot. That works in the Rams’ favor from a body clock perspective.
“And then, when they come back, they’re not trying to adjust to jet lag because if they jet in and jet out, they try to keep their clocks on Pacific Time, and they don’t have to spend many days trying to then try get back on Pacific Time, like the 49ers will, when they are returning and trying to get ready for the following week.”
The 49ers’ travel plans have been in mind as tight end George Kittle tries to make his way back from an Achilles tear for the start of the season. (Photo by Matthew Huang/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
And the disadvantages for the Rams?
“It’s a long flight,” Mah said. “Even though they are trying not to change body clocks and sleep, they will still experience travel fatigue. And that is a lot of travel fatigue in a very short amount of time — both going there and coming back. And then trying to be fresh enough and ready enough to play the following day. I just think that’s incredibly challenging physiologically, especially when you’re on that long flight. You’re cramped. There’s dehydration and there’s still going to be some time when the players need to sleep and take naps.
“Trying to do that without any cushion between landing and playing definitely can be challenging for them.”
The Rams are also traveling westward instead of eastward and across many more time zones (London is eight hours ahead of Los Angeles, while Melbourne is 17 hours ahead of Los Angeles) than London last year, which could impact their approach.
Mah said the rule of thumb is that for every time zone you cross, it takes your body about a day to acclimate. Usually, on domestic flights, travelers deal with a maximum of three time zone changes, and so it will take three days to adjust if you do nothing ahead of the flight to shift your body clock, according to Mah.
So, the 49ers have taken what some sleep experts would consider a more traditional approach to dealing with jet lag by traveling a week early.
“There’s pros and cons to what the 49ers are doing as well, right?” Mah said. “They are trying to shift their body clock, but even in a week they’re probably not going to be completely shifted physiologically to Australia time. The benefit is they have a couple of days to train closer to game time at 10 a.m. … Aligning their practice time gives them an opportunity to synchronize it with kickoff time.
“They have a couple of days to get rehydrated and better acclimated to the Australian Time Zone, get their eating habits and treatments better resynchronized, so they have a better cushion when it comes to game time.”
Mah acknowledged that, culturally, things can be different for teams. In working with teams traveling to London, some teams chose to arrive just a few days before kickoff while others got there a week in advance. For some teams, being in a different country and dealing with changes like food provides a challenge for players. And players will have a say in how teams decide to proceed.
“There’s no perfect solution,” Mah said. “There’s clearly advantages and disadvantages to what both teams are trying to do. But I do think being thoughtful about how they’ve chosen to do this and being mindful of sleep and the impact of travel is a huge win.”
