It’s 6.30pm on Sunday evening and LA Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford is speaking to reporters in an unpleasant-smelling makeshift press room in Wembley Stadium when he is interrupted by a booming voice from behind a curtain. It’s teammate Davante Adams shouting “Whose house?” in delight after his three touchdowns in the romp over Jacksonville Jaguars.
Adams knows what it means to score a hat-trick at Wembley but he is less certain about what day it is. “I feel like I’m connected to the country and the people now,” he says. With the game kicking off at 6.30am back home on the west coast, the Rams had taken the lead before most of their fans had settled on the sofa with their morning coffee. Adams and his teammates will soon be heading 5,400 miles home – just 36 hours after arriving. Welcome to the International Series.
It was a fleeting visit for Sean McVay’s team. They arrived in London on Saturday morning and left soon after the game on Sunday, choosing not to do any media or open practice, barely having time to unpack their bags. Some wardrobes at their hotel must have gone unopened.
So, was quarterback Stafford jet-lagged when he threw his five touchdowns? “Ask me tomorrow,” he says with a smile. “It was an interesting 24-48 hours, that’s for sure. We slept on the flight, treated it like a red-eye and in the first two quarters thought: ‘This is great.’ It’ll be a wild one flying back to LA tonight. It’s a blast.”
How did McVay cope with the transatlantic travel? “It’s across different time zones but there was no point wasting mental energy on that,” he says. “We just had to be ready at kick-off. The people behind the scenes deserve enormous credit for picking up the whole operation and taking it on a nine-day trip. We’ll have a fun, long flight home.” As the effervescent coach cracked jokes with the Rams beat writers, his head of comms looked as if he might fall asleep standing up.
Players pray after the Minnesota Vikings v Cleveland Browns game in Tottenham. Photograph: Bradley Collyer/PA
None of the six teams that played in London this month stayed for long. The Jaguars and Minnesota Vikings flew on Tuesday night, giving themselves the chance to train in London for three days. The Cleveland Browns arrived on a Thursday and “got the blood flowing” with a short session on Friday. The series gives NFL players a brief taste of global travel. “Other sports such as baseball get used to doing it, but it’s new for us,” said Adams after his Wembley heroics. “I went to sleep at 10.30pm and woke up at 4am and lay in bed for five hours and couldn’t get back to sleep. I got to say goodnight to my kids, though. It was a weird, low energy.”
Despite the frantic nature of their trips, most players embrace the experience. “Before the schedule comes out, I look to see if it’s possible that teams you are playing might host international games, then hope that’s one of your away games,” Vikings veteran AJ Thielen told me between their matches in Dublin and Tottenham. “I was with the Panthers when the schedule came out and we had no international games this year. Then when I got traded, it was like: oh, cool, I get two international games.”
The teams tend to follow a familiar pattern when visiting London, setting up camp in Hogwartian country hotels on opposing sides of Hertfordshire. This month the Browns, New York Jets and Jaguars were based at The Grove outside Watford; the Vikings and Broncos opted for Hanbury Manor near Ware. They took over the hotels almost entirely. The conference centre became a replica of the Jets practice facility, complete with meeting rooms, a players’ lounge, plunge pools, the obligatory weights room and a bespoke pitch. The teams travel with so many staff that many of them have to be bussed off to a neighbouring hotel every night.
The mood is deadly serious among non-playing staff. Stern-faced security check lanyards at every turn. When the Browns were at the Grove, journalists had to pass through airport-like security every time they walked from the press room to the toilets or the pile of finger sandwiches and scones. Reporters are only allowed to watch a short section of training sessions.
Trevor Lawrence at Wembley for the match between the LA Rams and Jacksonville Jaguars. Photograph: Bradley Collyer/PA
Warm-ups were accompanied by thumping music – heavy hip-hop with a touch of grime and dose of Adele to add some London flavour. Calisthenics was done en masse and in full kit – the only time the whole 60-odd players are together on grass – before the groups were split into their positions, the defensive line 50 yards from the rest of their teammates. For the stretches, there were no helmets required. Intriguingly, half the Vikings team wore Guardian Cap helmets in training for added protection, but only two players did on gameday.
Their characters came through during the sessions. Trevor Lawrence is clearly the Jaguars’ leader. During the high hops before practice, he bounced inches above every other player, most of whom just went through the motions. Travis Hunter spent more time tying his shoelaces than stretching, like a shirking kid at school avoiding the run around the field before PE. The lithe Hunter exposes the myth that American football is a game of size.
While Lawrence has spectacularly powerful legs and tight end Tyler Long may be the most appropriately named player in professional sports, flyweight cornerbacks Greg Newsome III and Montaric Brown looked like youth teamers admiring first-team training as they watched the Jags special teams rehearse kick returns. You might assume that moving any further than the front of the buffet queue would be an effort for some linemen – at 324 lbs, Khalen Saunders is positively round – but, when the coach starts their drills, they sparkle, like switching on a power drill for five seconds of serious impact.
The LA Rams players walk out at Wembley. Photograph: Bradley Collyer/PA
When the NFL is in town, it attracts attention. The Browns were watched by several FA coaches including Ashley Cole. A week later a few hundred lucky Jaguars fans saw their heroes close up. Lawrence and Hunter signed dozens of autographs together for fans but they could not be more different in the media room. You might expect more for $60m than Hunter’s one-sentence soundbites, but Lawrence greeted the press, listened to questions attentively and gave lengthy and considered answers.
Not every player is comfortable in front of a room full of strangers with cameras. Browns rookie Mason Graham looked like a schoolboy called into the head’s office as he awkwardly faced the media with a glazed look. He admitted it was “difficult to keep locked in” on his first trip out of North America. He spent his afternoon off before the game visiting Big Ben. Some Vikings players went on the London Eye. The Rams didn’t have time for any of that. But they will all be back.
Twenty years after the NFL’s first trip abroad in Mexico City, there have been 60 international games. With the Jaguars planning to play as many as four games in London when their stadium is renovated in 2027, it won’t take long to rack up another 60.
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