A few days ago, I wrote about the radically different approaches the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers were taking for the NFL’s historic first regular-season game in Australia. The 49ers flew to Melbourne a full week before the game, giving their players time to recover from the long flight, acclimate to the 17-hour time difference, practice locally and actually experience Australia. The Rams did almost the exact opposite.
They departed Los Angeles Tuesday night and arrived in Melbourne roughly 28 hours before kickoff, essentially treating a 15-hour flight halfway around the world like a quick business trip. I wrote at the time that I thought it was a huge mistake, both from a competitive standpoint and from the perspective of growing the Rams’ fan base in Australia. Well, it turns out it was even worse than I imagined.
The 49ers destroyed the Rams 27-7 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, and Los Angeles looked exactly like you’d expect a team to look after flying halfway around the world and barely having enough time to unpack.
The Rams’ travel experiment completely backfired
To be fair, the Rams didn’t just randomly decide to show up at the last minute. According to ESPN‘s Peter Schrager, the organization had spent two years studying the trip and even sent 15 staffers overseas to track their bodies and sleep rhythms. The idea was that instead of adjusting to Melbourne time, the players could essentially remain on Pacific Time. Since kickoff in Melbourne corresponded to approximately 5:35 p.m. back home in Los Angeles, the theory was that their bodies would be ready to perform.
There was legitimate sports science behind the strategy, but there’s also something called common sense. I’ve flown between California and Australia many times and there’s no way I would want to get off a 15-hour flight and do something physically demanding the next day, let alone play an NFL game against one of the best teams in the league.
There’s more to flying halfway around the world than just what time your internal clock thinks it is. There’s dehydration, travel fatigue, disrupted sleep, different meals, stiffness from sitting on an airplane for hours and just the general fog that can come from a trip that long.
And the Rams looked awful. They managed just seven points and were shut out after taking a 7-3 lead early in the second quarter. Matthew Stafford threw for only 155 yards with an interception, while San Francisco rushed for 174 yards and scored 24 unanswered points.
What really caught my attention was what 49ers linebacker Fred Warner said afterward. He felt San Francisco was actually getting stronger as the game went on while the Rams “withered away.” He also said their decision to arrive early and acclimate “gave us a chance to win this game.”
Even 49ers wide receiver Mike Evans seemed shocked when he was told after the game that the Rams had arrived only about 25 to 28 hours before kickoff. He wasn’t alone. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith said, “You got there 28 hours before the game. Clearly, that appeared to be a mistake.”
The Rams might need a new sleep doctor
I understand why professional sports teams rely on sleep doctors, performance experts and mountains of data. When you’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars on players and competing at this level, you’re looking for every possible advantage.
But whoever recommended that the Rams fly 15 hours across the Pacific and arrive roughly a day before an NFL game has some explaining to do. Peter Schrager, who had reported on all the research the Rams did before the trip, didn’t hold back afterward either. He said the Rams looked “as sluggish a team as you will see” in an NFL season opener and that they “didn’t look like they belonged on the same field as the 49ers.”
That’s the problem when you go against conventional wisdom and tell everyone you’ve done the research. You’d better be right. The Rams weren’t just wrong. They got embarrassed.
I think the Rams made an even bigger mistake off the field
Before the game, I actually had another problem with their strategy that had nothing to do with sleep or football.
This was the first regular-season NFL game ever played in Australia. That’s a big deal. The Rams were the designated home team and they have NFL marketing rights in Australia and New Zealand through the league’s Global Markets Program. If you’re trying to build a fan base halfway around the world, why wouldn’t you actually spend some time there?
The Rams have done promotional work in Australia leading up to the game, so I’m not suggesting they completely ignored the country. But during the biggest week the NFL has ever had there, most of the actual players weren’t even in Australia until right before the game.
Meanwhile, the 49ers arrived a week early. They practiced there, did media, interacted with locals and were visible around Melbourne. They embraced the whole experience and, as I predicted in my previous story, it paid off with the fans.
Watching the game, it sure didn’t feel like a Rams home game. There was an incredible amount of red in the stands and the 49ers had a huge amount of support. One of their players even talked afterward about how much the crowd helped them.
To me, that’s the biggest missed opportunity for the Rams. International games aren’t just about playing a football game in another country. They’re about growing the sport and creating fans.
I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to Australia many times, including when the Los Angeles Dodgers played the Arizona Diamondbacks in Sydney in 2014 in the first regular-season Major League Baseball games ever held there. Both teams arrived early enough to spend time experiencing the country and the whole thing felt like much more than a couple of baseball games.
I also still remember arriving in Sydney on another trip and talking to an Australian immigration officer. When he found out I was from Southern California, he immediately wanted to talk NFL. His favorite team was the then-San Diego Chargers. That conversation has always stuck with me because it showed just how far the NFL’s reach already was, even back then.
So if you’re the Rams and you’ve been given this incredible opportunity to be the home team in the first NFL regular-season game in Australia, why wouldn’t you take advantage of the entire week? Meet fans. Visit schools. Hold events. Let the players experience Melbourne. Give Australian fans a reason to become Rams fans. Instead, the 49ers did that and then mopped the floor with them.
The Rams lost twice in Australia
That’s really what it comes down to for me. The Rams didn’t just lose the football game. They lost the week.
San Francisco arrived early, acclimated, embraced Australia, connected with fans and then walked into the MCG and beat the Rams 27-7. Los Angeles flew in at the last minute, barely experienced the country and then got embarrassed on the field.
Of course, there’s no way to prove the Rams would have won if they had arrived a week earlier. Maybe San Francisco is simply the better team. And there’s actually going to be a pretty good test of that theory when these teams meet again in Santa Clara in December.
In fact, I think that’s about the only way the Rams’ sleep doctor shouldn’t be fired: If the 49ers mop up the Rams again in Santa Clara.
That rematch won’t involve a 15-hour flight across the Pacific, a 17-hour time difference or players stepping onto the field roughly 28 hours after arriving on another continent. They’ll both be in California under much more normal NFL travel conditions. If San Francisco destroys them again, then I’ll happily admit that maybe the Australia travel strategy wasn’t the problem and the 49ers are simply that much better.
But if the Rams look like a completely different team in December, I have a feeling a lot of people will look back at this Australia experiment and wonder what the heck they were thinking.
For now, all we know is that one team arrived a week early, embraced Australia, won over the crowd and dominated the game. The other flew halfway around the world at the last possible minute and got destroyed 27-7.
I don’t need to be a sleep doctor to know which travel strategy I’d choose.
