It appears the San Francisco 49ers will not in fact spend a week in Youngstown, Ohio later this season. The team has twice spent time there, but according to Matt Maiocco, the timing of the schedule has resulted in the team choosing to not spend time in Youngstown this year.
As the NFL was putting together the 2015 schedule, the 49ers requested back-to-back east coast road games in order to take advantage of the DeBartolo-York hometown. The NFL provided such an opportunity against the Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns in Weeks 13 and 14. The 49ers could fly to Chicago, take a short hop to Youngstown, and then potentially just bus up to Cleveland.
However, the 49ers have decided to fly back to to the Bay Area after the Bears game for two reasons, according to Maiocco:
1. The Bears game is at 1 p.m. ET, which makes it noon in Chicago. The 49ers think that gives them time to be back in the Bay Area by 7 p.m. PT.
2. The games are in December, and there is some concern about the potential for bad weather creating problems during that week of preparations.
And so, the team will fly back and forth for each game. The early game against the Bears makes it a little bit easier to deal with, but it will be interesting to see how they look on the back-end of those two games.
The travel on that back end is going to be tough. Following the team's Week 10 bye, they travel to Seattle in Week 11, host Arizona in Week 12, travel to Chicago and Cleveland in Weeks 13 and 14, host Cincinnati in Week 15, travel to Detroit in Week 16, and close the regular season at home against St. Louis. That's four road games in six weeks. Even if we drop the Seahawks game since it's close, that's three road games in four weeks. If the 49ers are in contention at that point, they will most definitely be earning every inch.