The Rams’ travel plans to Australia make absolutely no sense

| AFP via Getty Images Australia is one of the most unique and beautiful countries on Earth. Traveling to Australia is one of the most profoundly awful experiences in air travel. While the San Francisco 49ers caught their flight last week to acclimate ahead of their Thursday game, the Los Angeles Rams made the unorthodox decision to wait until the last moment to take the trip, choosing not to leave until Tuesday night L.A. time, which was Wednesday morning in Melbourne. As someone who was born and raised in Australia, and who has made the flight 18 times over the course of my life, let me say that this decision by the Rams was absolutely mind-boggling. There’s nothing that can adequately prepare you for 14 hours and 45 minutes of in-air time, even on a private jet — and that’s before we talk about the profound toll that jet lag and an inverse climate puts on your body when you land. The flight, aka the suck It’s critical to note that the Rams decked out their private jet to ensure every player had a lay-flat bed on the flight, but that doesn’t change the fundamental fact that you’re in the air for over half a day. I’ve made this flight in coach, I’ve done it in business class — and in my experience the discomfort is far less about the amount of room you have to stretch out, but the feeling of breathing dry, recirculated air for such an extended period of time. Airplane air has a relative humidity of 10-to-30 percent, drastically below the 60-percent most humans would consider “comfortable.” This desert-like lack of humidity, paired with a tolerable temperature, means you are getting significantly dehydrated without really feeling it. You have to ingest massive amounts of water to stay ahead of the curve, but you don’t really want to, because your body isn’t getting the necessary cues for thirst. Every time I fly, I do my level best to down 64 ounces on the flight, and I’m lucky if I get through 20. Having a full bed on a private flight is a joy I’ll never experience, but at some point you’re still stuck in a plane for almost 15 hours. The first few hours are fine, then you begin to get stir crazy from hours 7-through-9, and the last four hours of the flight are just hell. There’s no amount of pacing around the plane that makes it better, no distraction you can find. All you want in the world is to be off that plane, and it’s so much more uncomfortable than a long car ride where you have some autonomy when it comes to the temperature, the stops, and the journey as a whole. Arriving in Australia Your reward for that horrific plane trip is one of the most jarring experiences you’ll face when you get out of the cabin. The Rams will have left Los Angeles in early fall, with a temperature of around 88 degrees, and arrived in early spring in Melbourne, which is almost 30 degrees cooler. The Rams will be used to traveling from warm climates to substantially cooler ones, but this is also paired with a complete time flip from morning to night, as well as a 30 percent shift in humidity. It’s so much drastic change to throw at your body that often it just wants to shut down and rest as a result. A sleep researcher has praised the Rams’ approach, saying that even the 49ers’ early flight didn’t give them enough time to adjust — but sleep is just one factor in this. For the first three or four days, you just feel off after making the trip, and part of that is due to sleep, but a lot more of that is just acclimatizing. There are weather changes, pressure changes, humidity changes, allergen changes, alteration in air quality — so many things that impact how you feel after a flight. Frankly, I don’t think the Rams have given themselves nearly enough time to adjust, even if their sleep is technicall fine. I’m not sure the Rams understood the time difference In looking up the Rams’ travel schedule there was a quote from Sean McVay which jumped off the screen. “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.” I’m don’t know what McVay is saying here, because this is categorically not the schedule the Rams were on. Australia is ahead of the United States by 17 hours — not the other way around. This is not a “Friday evening” game, as McVay says — because the game is literally airing on Thursday night in the USA. The Rams arrived at 5:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Australian time. That only gives them Wednesday night and Thursday to recover — then they play at 10:35 a.m. local time on Friday morning. It appears McVay might have been confused, thinking the game wasn’t taking place until Saturday morning in Melbourne, which would have been Friday night U.S. time. Will all this hurt the Rams? That’s on them. In my significant experience making the trip from Los Angeles to Australia, it’s brutal, and I cannot imagine being asked to turnaround and play an NFL football game within two days of landing. Heck, this was Matthew Stafford at a press conference well after landing in Melbourne, and he still looks like he’s gone 10 rounds in a boxing ring. The decision to hold the flight and arrive too near to kickoff might have been the Rams trying to play 4D chess, and we’ll see on Thursday night. Perhaps they’ll come out looking like the same old Rams, but if there’s any sign of struggle then this decision is right to be criticized in Week 1.

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