Over the course of a given season, when a team has a particularly long two-game road trip, they will often simply pack their bags for ten or so days and spend the entire time on the road. When the 49ers played in London last year, they traveled to Carolina and then on to London. For a more reasonable example, in 2008 the Patriots played the 49ers and Chargers on back-to-back weeks and decided to spend a chunk of time down in San Jose between the two games.
The 49ers have done something similar this week, although it still is a little bit peculiar. The 49ers played the Cincinnati Bengals in Cincy this past Sunday and follow that up with a game against the Philadelphia Eagles in Philly this coming Sunday. Traveling back to the Bay Area and then back east to Philly would have been a bit brutal on the internal clock for most of these guys so the team decided to road trip to Youngstown, Ohio.
For those wondering why Youngstown of all places in Ohio, the DeBartolo family is originally from Youngstown. While there might have been other reasons, I'd be shocked if that didn't play some role in the decision. The team will be practicing at Youngstown State this week.
The question now is whether sticking in the Eastern Time Zone will be a difference-maker for the 49ers. I don't know if they slept walk through much of the first half, but it was not exactly a pretty start to the game. Could a full week back east help the team? I might be inclined to call BS given how they jumped on Atlanta after a trip east last year. At the same time, it still seems like a good idea to cut down the travel back and forth for this particular trip.
Do you see any impact from it?