Despite criticism of the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 past international game itinerary, owner Art Rooney II doesn\u2019t seem intent on changing plans for next month\u2019s game in Dublin, Ireland. Doubling down on comments he made in May following the schedule release, Rooney shared the team\u2019s likely schedule to fly over for the NFL\u2019s first-ever regular season game in Ireland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the team is planning to leave on Thursday, arriving in Dublin Friday morning,\u201d Rooney told WTAE\u2019s Andrew Stockey in a one-on-one interview.<\/a> \u201cSo we\u2019ll have two practices Friday and Saturday. And the game on Sunday. And leave right after the game.\u201d<\/p>\n That matches Rooney\u2019s comments in May when the Steelers-Vikings game was officially revealed to be played September 28. At the time, Rooney indicated the team would leave later in the week.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019ll be too much different from the last trip,\u201d Rooney told Steelers.com\u2019s Missi Matthews at the time.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Pittsburgh\u2019s last international game came in 2013. A loss to the Minnesota Vikings in London, the Steelers came out flat and couldn\u2019t complete a late-game rally. In the years since, players have criticized the schedule, believing jet lag played a major factor in the team looking unprepared.<\/p>\n In July of 2024, current Steelers DL Cam Heyward cited the decision to leave Thursday and take an over 7-hour flight to London as \u201cthe worst thing we did for that trip.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe left on a Thursday night, got in Friday morning, and went straight to practice,\u201d Heyward said on his Not Just Football podcast.<\/a> \u201cThat was the first time I\u2019ve ever seen coaches sleep in a meeting. There were players falling asleep during warmup. It was rough. Our team likes to believe we don\u2019t need sleep, or we don\u2019t need to get adjusted to the time.\u201d<\/p>\n A non-stop flight from Pittsburgh to Ireland will take roughly the same amount of time.<\/p>\n Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has offered similar critiques.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was such a big mistake\u201d, Roethlisberger said in 2023.<\/a> \u201cWe were so exhausted and gassed\u201d.<\/p>\n Pittsburgh never led in the London loss, falling behind 10-0 in the first quarter and 20-10 at halftime. By the fourth quarter, the Steelers trailed 34-17, and a furious comeback fell short, a last-second drive stalling at the Vikings\u2019 6-yard line.<\/p>\n The Steelers haven\u2019t played internationally since.<\/p>\n Despite clear comments from past and present well-respected players, the Steelers don\u2019t appear set to change their schedule for this game. It\u2019s not yet known when Minnesota plans to fly out. Many teams opt to arrive as early as possible, creating a normal work week and opportunity for players to adjust to the new time zone and quirks of another country (even the wall outlets are different<\/a>).<\/p>\n If Pittsburgh comes out looking tired this time around against Minnesota, the team\u2019s flight plans, not the football game plan, might be the biggest reason to blame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite criticism of the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 past international game itinerary, owner Art Rooney II doesn\u2019t seem intent on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268011,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[52264,4393,6594,4034,7,259,6,520,57,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-268010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-andrew-stockey","9":"tag-art-rooney-ii","10":"tag-ben-roethlisberger","11":"tag-cameron-heyward","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-minnesota-vikings","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-pittsburgh","16":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","17":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","18":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114985375137753779","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268010\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}