Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer wants his team well-rested and well-prepared for Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens in Brazil and believes he’s found the right strategy to account for the long travel time.
With a 10-hour flight to prepare for, Schottenheimer announced that the plan is to fly in and arrive tomorrow morning so they can have one proper Friday practice before their game on Sunday. He believes the players will be able to sleep on the plane and then be rested enough to have a normal practice.
“Most of the guys have lay-down seats. It’s a big, big plane. It’s important. We’ve talked a lot about it. We’re gonna get on the plane, take off 7:30, 8 o’clock, which is already 10 o’clock Rio time. We’re going to fly through the night. We’ve thought of everything. our team: The compression pants and shirts you wear. It’s going to be a dark plane. We’ll feed them a little bit, but we need them to rest. And then when we get there we’re going to get them moving pretty quick and get out to a meting, and then a practice, and try to get them acclimated as best we can,” Schottenheimer explained.
The Cowboys coach also shrugged off the discourse over the state of the playing surface at Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana Stadium, which many feel is simply not suitable for a game. Schottenheimer feels that it’s the same issue with any game taking place outdoors.
“That’s every week,” Schottenheimer said. “That’s one of the benefits of playing in the dome, you don’t have much to worry about — maybe the majestic lights that show up from time to time. But when you’re playing outdoors, you’ve always got to be ready to adjust. You’ve got to be ready for, is it raining, is the surface, is it windy? All of those things are on our gameday checklist.”
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The Issue with Travel
The Los Angeles Rams were heavily criticized for their approach to travel for their Week 1 game against the San Francisco 49ers in Australia. While the 49ers spent several days in Australia, the Rams treated it like a business trip, arriving just one day before.
It’s hard to say if this contributed to their blowout loss to the 49ers, but the correlation-causation faction now firmly believe that a team needs to spend a little more time acclimating to the new environment in order to have a chance.
The good news for Cowboys fans is that the Baltimore Ravens have a nearly identical plan, so there won’t be an advantage either way.
