SI:AM | Blowout Loss Puts Rams’ Travel Plans in the Spotlight

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. As I write this, the Rams are flying 37,000 feet above the island nation of Tuvalu. They won’t touch down in Los Angeles until after my workday is over.

In today’s SI:AM:
🦘 Niners win big in Melbourne
🏈 BC’s emotional game
📺 CFB Week 2 watch guide

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Jet lag remains undefeated

It seems to me that at least one of the following three statements has to be true:

The Rams hype train gathered way too much steam this offseason.
The 49ers are pretty damn good, too.
Flying 8,000 miles the day before playing an NFL football game is a silly idea.

Maybe all three are correct.

The Niners made quick work of the Rams on Friday morning in Australia (last night, U.S. time), winning 27–7. San Francisco held the edge in every meaningful statistical category as Los Angeles turned in one of its worst offensive performances of the Sean McVay era. McVay has now coached 150 games for the Rams, and last night was just the sixth time that his team has failed to score more than seven points. The last time the Rams scored fewer than eight points in a game in which their starting quarterback was healthy was 2019.

So why did the Rams fall flat? The most glaring possible explanation is their unorthodox travel itinerary. While the Niners flew to Australia a week before the game, the Rams only arrived across the Pacific the day before, choosing to approach a matchup on the other side of the world as just another road trip. It’s an 8,000-mile flight that takes 15 hours.

Now, the Rams weren’t squeezed into middle seats in coach. They chartered a double-decker Qantas Airbus A380 with enough lay-flat seats for every player. And it wasn’t like their quick turnaround was to save money on hotel rooms. The Rams had two years to prepare for the trip and determined this was the right way to do it. (SI’s Mike Kadlick had a good story earlier this week where he spoke with Brendan Burger, the Rams’ vice president of facilities and equipment, about the team’s travel plans.)

It’s a bold strategy, but it’s not necessarily a foolish one. There’s a certain amount of logic to trying to keep the players’ bodies on Pacific Time. In fact, the Rams had done something similar when they played in London last year, having flown in the day before from Baltimore. They played the game at what felt like 9:30 a.m. and beat the Jaguars, 35–7. Still, San Francisco receiver Mike Evans was shocked when he was informed by reporters that his opponents had only arrived in Melbourne the day before. “Oh, dang!” Evans said.

Niners linebacker Fred Warner said he felt the Rams “withered away” and that coming to Australia early was “what gave us a chance to win this game.”

McVay dismissed the impact of the travel plans on the game, though.

“I don’t believe that that’s why we didn’t play well enough,” McVay said. “I really don’t ... I’ll always make decisions that I think are best for the football team. It’s easy in hindsight to be able to say it was a miss, but those are responsibilities that I’ll take.”

Rams receiver Devante Adams said “the travel s---” had “nothing to do with” the team’s poor performance. Niners coach Kyle Shanahan also said he thought the travel plans didn’t give either team an advantage.

The only thing that’s certain is that the two teams’ opposing approaches to the road trip showed how weird and difficult it is to play a game in Australia. Games played abroad will become increasingly common as the NFL tries to expand its global footprint, but playing in Europe and South America is totally different from playing on the other side of the international date line. The Niners’ win gave teams something to consider if the league ever plays another game in Australia. Or maybe the Rams’ approach will prove smarter in the long run than the Niners' seesawing from one 17-hour time difference to another. Either way, the league’s 30 other teams should be happy that they’re opening their season on home soil.

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The top five…

… things I saw last night:
5. Field judge Sean Petty’s Aussie rules football signal after a successful field goal attempt.
4. Brock Purdy’s improvisation in the backfield before throwing a touchdown pass to Deebo Samuel Sr. to cap a 99-yard drive.
3. Oneil Cruz’s homer that left the bat at 117.4 mph. There have only been six batted balls this season with an exit velocity of at least 117 mph. Cruz has two of them, including now the hardest-hit homer of the season.
2. Puka Nacua’s tough running after the catch on a 41-yard gain.
1. Jake Mangum’s diving catch to keep Pirates pitcher Jared Jones’s no-hit bid alive in the seventh inning. (Jones allowed a double two batters later.)

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