Raiders' Travel Is Way Down in 2020
by Tom LaMarre
Only six teams in the National Football League will travel more than the Las Vegas Raiders this season, but Jon Gruden and his troops probably will feel they’ve almost been grounded compared to last year.
According to CBS Sports, the Raiders will travel 20,967 miles in the air this season, the seventh-most in the NFL.
A year ago, the Silver and Black were in the air for a total of 32,023 miles on their way to and from road games, by far the most in the NFL and more than all three teams in New York state combined.
In fact, the Raiders led the league in most miles traveled each of the last three seasons, and a big part of that is that they played an international game in five of the last six years. There will be no NFL international games this season because of the Coronavirus pandemic.
It helps a little that the Raiders moved from Oakland to Las Vegas, and it helps a lot that they don’t have a trip to London, where they defeated the Chicago Bears, 24-21, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in a game last October.
The Seattle Seahawks will lead the NFL in travel miles this season with 28,982 miles, making five trips of at least 2,000 miles.
Also ahead of the Raiders are the Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Chargers, New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills.
It’s obvious that the West Coast teams are at a disadvantage when it comes to travel, even though the Raiders do get something of a break with road games against the Kansas City Chiefs, Denver Broncos and Chargers every year.
The Raiders do have some reasonably long trips for games this season against the Carolina Panthers, the Atlanta Falcons, the New England Patriots, the Cleveland Browns and the New York Jets.
But those will feel like short hops when compared top that long round-trip to London.
