{"id":783006,"date":"2026-02-28T21:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T21:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/783006\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T21:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T21:21:14","slug":"john-lynch-says-nfl-will-give-49ers-scheduling-grace-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/783006\/","title":{"rendered":"John Lynch says NFL will give 49ers scheduling ‘grace’ in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 49ers are bracing for an unusually demanding travel schedule in 2026, and general manager John Lynch says the NFL has promised to help ease the burden. San Francisco is set to play international games in both Melbourne, Australia, and Mexico City next season, and Lynch told the 49ers Talk<\/a> podcast that the league will offer some scheduling \u201cgrace\u201d on the back end of those trips to account for the travel strain on players.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve talked to the league and the league has assured us that they will give us some grace on the back end,\u201d Lynch said<\/a>. \u201cThings that we\u2019re not going to go into, but in terms of scheduling to ease that burden.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Melbourne game will be the first NFL regular-season game ever played in Australia, with San Francisco facing the Los Angeles Rams in what is expected to take place during Week 1<\/a> \u2014 potentially on a Wednesday or Thursday to allow both teams extra recovery time before Week 2. The flight from the West Coast to Melbourne takes 14-16 hours, and the time difference with the Pacific Time Zone is 19 hours.<\/p>\n

The last time San Francisco played outside the continental U.S. was in 2022, when the team traveled to Mexico City<\/a> to face the Arizona Cardinals and did a week of altitude training in Colorado Springs beforehand. Lynch said no similar plans have been solidified yet for this year\u2019s Mexico City game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s part of another challenge,\u201d Lynch said. \u201cI think we will set a record for the amount of travel in a year. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s accurate, but we always travel a lot. It just got a lot bit more because of the distance of Australia. Part of it is exciting, though. We will embrace it. We will make the most of it, and we will be smart about the way we will approach it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lynch also acknowledged the tradeoff that comes with the 49ers\u2019 visibility as a traveling draw, adding that, \u201cThose decisions have been made. We fight for our players. I have always. I think part of the problem is we\u2019ve got a lot of good ones that are really good draws. People want to see them, and the league tends to put the teams in the opening game that they want to showcase.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NFL is playing nine international games in 2026 \u2014 its contractual maximum<\/a> \u2014 after commissioner Roger Goodell has pushed aggressively to expand the league\u2019s global footprint. The official schedule is expected to be released in mid-May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 49ers are bracing for an unusually demanding travel schedule in 2026, and general manager John Lynch says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,110790,7,2810,58,110791,41604,6,13886,7756,1161,252,2624,2623],"class_list":{"0":"post-783006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-49ers","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-49ers-schedule-2026","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-john-lynch","12":"tag-los-angeles-rams","13":"tag-melbourne-australia","14":"tag-mexico-city","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-nfl-international-games","17":"tag-nfl-schedule","18":"tag-san-francisco","19":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","20":"tag-sanfrancisco","21":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116150356197052922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783006","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=783006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}