Sean McVay explains Rams travel plans for Australia’s NFL game against the 49ers

The San Francisco 49ers are already in Australia for Thursday’s game in Melbourne, but the Los Angeles Rams won’t arrive for a few more days.

Rams head coach Sean McVay revealed the team’s plans Sunday, telling reporters they will fly out Tuesday night and will try to make the trip as short as possible.

“The guys had an idea, but I tell them, ‘Hey, let’s take it day by day, but just so your guys understand, we’ll leave it at what’s equivalent to – I look at it like Friday night,'” he said. “For you guys, it’s Tuesday night, but it will be the equivalent of Friday night. Sleep through the night and then we’ll get there and we’ll have a rhythm. But I believe in everything we do, I think our guys do, and I hope – the most important thing to me – is that they know that, hey, everything we do is what we think is best.”

The Niners are taking a completely different approach, sending the team to the other side of the world at the beginning of the week to give them time to settle.

“It doesn’t mean we think we’re right and the other approach is wrong. It’s just what we think is best based on what we’ve done and what we’ve learned in our time here,” McVay said. “The thing that will always continually drive our decision-making processes is that the players are at the forefront of every decision we make and keep the guys in their normal rhythm and routine. Then some of the different things that we did behind the scenes of the people who were doing it, whether it was different sports or people who were doing similar trips. We’ve tested it with some guys and feel like it’s been positive, but that’s what went into the approach.”

Staying in Los Angeles as long as possible would, in theory, give the Rams a mostly normal week as they prepare for Thursday’s season opener, but they would have less time to recover from both jet lag and time spent on the plane.

“The jet lag didn’t affect me that much,” 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey said of travel fatigue. “It’s more about how long you’re on the plane.”

Thursday’s game will be the first NFL game in Australia and is by far the longest trip any team has made for a game. If anything, it will be a learning experience for other teams on how to approach such a trip.

Whether the 49ers or Rams method is better remains to be seen.