The Steelers are getting ready to play in Eire, and seem to have discovered nothing from their final worldwide recreation expertise. In accordance with Steelers president Artwork Rooney II, they plan to maintain the identical itinerary as final time. The one drawback is, gamers cited their itinerary as a contributing issue to their loss in London in 2013.
“From our perspective, I don’t assume lots has modified”, Rooney advised Missi Matthews for the Steelers’ web site about getting ready to play in Eire. “I feel we’re planning to go away much like what we did for the final worldwide journey [in London]. Most likely depart on Thursday and follow there on Friday and Saturday and have the sport on Sunday and fly out Sunday evening. I don’t assume it’ll be an excessive amount of totally different from the final journey”.
Final 12 months, Cameron Heyward referred to as Pittsburgh’s itinerary for the London recreation “the worst factor we did for that journey”. He famous that they left on Thursday evening, practiced very first thing Friday, and so forth. “That was the primary time I’ve ever seen coaches sleep in a gathering”. And Heyward continues to be on the roster because the Steelers ready to play in London.
One would hope that Heyward can have some enter to share his ideas on tips on how to work that out, on condition that he has expertise working with the sort of itinerary with the staff. Ben Roethlisberger gained’t be with the Steelers in Eire, however he was there in London. He shared comparable sentiments in 2023 in recalling the London recreation. “That was such a giant mistake”, he recalled. “We have been so exhausted and gassed”.
In different phrases, it could be a fully horrible thought if the Steelers plan to go away for Eire on Thursday evening. To Rooney’s credit score, he did appear to be talking at the least considerably informally. He did say, “it’s been a very long time since we’ve finished it, so we’ll must look into what different groups have been doing these days”.
Contemplating the NFL is tremendously increasing worldwide play, each staff goes to must familiarize themselves with taking part in in very totally different time zones. This isn’t only a three-hour east-coast-to-west-coast time change. That is 5 or 6 hours, dropping time. Particularly for the Steelers’ recreation in Eire, they are going to kick off at 2:30 PM native time, which is 9:30 EST. That’s a five-hour distinction, dropping that point moderately than gaining it. And the typical flight time from Pittsburgh to Dublin is over seven hours.
Again in 2013, the Vikings flew out to London on Monday in preparation for his or her recreation towards the Steelers, Pittsburgh flying out on Thursday, and so they plan to do the identical factor once more for the Eire recreation. In the event that they do, they could embarrass themselves on the Rooney’s ancestral grounds. Jetlag is an actual factor, as is acclimating your self to your setting. Plus, it might be cool to discover Eire a bit, so long as somebody retains on eye on Pat Freiermuth.
