The Steelers are preparing to play in Ireland, and appear to have learned nothing from their last international game experience. According to Steelers president Art Rooney II, they plan to keep the same itinerary as last time. The only problem is, players cited their itinerary as a contributing factor to their loss in London in 2013.
“From our point of view, I don’t think a lot has changed”, Rooney told Missi Matthews for the Steelers’ website about preparing to play in Ireland. “I think we’re planning to leave similar to what we did for the last international trip [in London]. Probably leave on Thursday and practice there on Friday and Saturday and have the game on Sunday and fly out Sunday night. I don’t think it’ll be too much different from the last trip”.
Last year, Cameron Heyward called Pittsburgh’s itinerary for the London game “the worst thing we did for that trip”. He noted that they left on Thursday night, practiced first thing Friday, and so on. “That was the first time I’ve ever seen coaches sleep in a meeting”. And Heyward is still on the roster as the Steelers prepared to play in London.
One would hope that Heyward will have some input to share his thoughts on how to work that out, given that he has experience working with this type of itinerary with the team. Ben Roethlisberger won’t be with the Steelers in Ireland, but he was there in London. He shared similar sentiments in 2023 in recalling the London game. “That was such a big mistake”, he recalled. “We were so exhausted and gassed”.
In other words, it might be an absolutely terrible idea if the Steelers plan to leave for Ireland on Thursday night. To Rooney’s credit, he did seem to be speaking at least somewhat informally. He did say, “it’s been a long time since we’ve done it, so we’ll have to look into what other teams have been doing lately”.
Considering the NFL is greatly expanding international play, every team is going to have to familiarize themselves with playing in very different time zones. This isn’t just a three-hour east-coast-to-west-coast time change. This is five or six hours, losing time. Specifically for the Steelers’ game in Ireland, they will kick off at 2:30 PM local time, which is 9:30 EST. That’s a five-hour difference, losing that time rather than gaining it. And the average flight time from Pittsburgh to Dublin is over seven hours.
Back in 2013, the Vikings flew out to London on Monday in preparation for their game against the Steelers, Pittsburgh flying out on Thursday, and they plan to do the same thing again for the Ireland game. If they do, they may embarrass themselves on the Rooney’s ancestral grounds. Jetlag is a real thing, as is acclimating yourself to your environment. Plus, it would be cool to explore Ireland a bit, as long as someone keeps on eye on Pat Freiermuth.
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