- 2 days ago
Willard and Dibs discuss the Rams' travel plans to Australia and how it compares to the 49ers. Which team do you think made the right decision?
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00:00The 49ers come from a land down under.
00:02The Rams don't, especially Aaron Donald.
00:06He's not going at all.
00:08No?
00:09No Aaron Donald to deal with on Thursday night.
00:12Wow.
00:13Okay.
00:14Then, like, go ahead and take the Niners, kukush, you know,
00:18take the three and a half on the road.
00:21Not a spread changer, by the way, I don't think.
00:23No, no.
00:24I think only the quarterback is the actual spread changer.
00:28I wonder if Puka had been out.
00:30I wonder if that would have done a little daisy dip.
00:34Maybe.
00:35On the number.
00:36Do you know what I mean?
00:38I bet you if Christian McCaffrey or Nick Bosa wasn't going to play in the game,
00:42that might get some people going.
00:45Aaron Donald's kind of a unique case.
00:46He's good enough to be in that conversation.
00:52But, A, the Rams still have a phenomenal defensive line without him.
00:56And, B, I just think that people have been conditioned like he hasn't been there
01:01for two years.
01:02And the Rams were already really good.
01:04So, it doesn't feel like their performance is going to dip all that much.
01:08And I wonder, like, you know, what it's going to be like for them when they fly out.
01:12I guess they're flying today?
01:13Or are they already in the air?
01:15No, they will leave tonight.
01:17I think they had their practice.
01:18Just like the Niners did.
01:19They left it around 9 o'clock at night.
01:21I think the Rams will do the same.
01:23So, you lose tomorrow in that particular case.
01:27In other words, the Rams will land somewhere around 2 or 3 in the afternoon our time tomorrow.
01:32But that is early Thursday morning there, which means they land.
01:40I don't know what they immediately go do.
01:43Are you body clocking?
01:45Like, are you trying to stay?
01:46I don't know what they're trying to do, but you'll land on Thursday morning.
01:51Maybe you get a snack.
01:53Go get, try to get some shut-eye.
01:56They may do a walk-through that afternoon.
01:59You go to bed that night.
02:00You wake up.
02:00You play the game.
02:0110.30 in the morning the next day.
02:02It's 10.30 on Friday.
02:04Australia time.
02:05Right.
02:05So, they will land, give or take, 27 hours before kickoff.
02:12And, I mean, I think that that is nonsense, and I know that you shared something earlier
02:18about a sleep expert who seems to think that that's actually the smart thing to do.
02:23Dr. Kathy Goldstein.
02:25She's a doctor?
02:26She's a doctor.
02:27Okay.
02:27A doctor of what?
02:29Who knows?
02:30The hell if I know.
02:31But she was talking this out.
02:34Let's see.
02:35This is from the Football Analytics Show.
02:37And this might surprise you.
02:39Has anybody heard, anybody say this so far?
02:43She believes the Rams are completely on to something.
02:48The Niners have made a tremendous error in judgment with the way they're going about doing this.
02:56You want to hear it?
02:57All right.
02:58Niners travel strategy, a terrible idea, says Dr. Kathy Goldstein.
03:04When we cross time zones, just because the clock on the wall changes in our destination,
03:10it doesn't mean that our body clock changes immediately.
03:14And that's because we have an internal timing system, our biological clock called the circadian
03:19rhythm.
03:19So what happens is when you travel to a new time zone, your body is trying to align.
03:26And during that alignment process, you end up with a misalignment between your internal
03:31circadian rhythm and external time.
03:34This results in sleep disruption, problems with performance, problems with digestion, metabolism.
03:41And it takes about a day per time zone crossed to fully adjust.
03:47And once the time zone changed from Melbourne to LA, if it's 17, they're going to need at least 17
03:54days to fully align.
03:55And the problem is you can't do that, obviously, in one week.
03:59So they're going to be partially misaligned.
04:01And it's not just that internal circadian misalignment with the time in Melbourne.
04:06They're also going to have sleep deprivation and poor performance while they're training and trying to recover and optimize themselves
04:16for the game the week ahead.
04:18So I think this is not a good strategy.
04:21Okay.
04:21I appreciated one thing from what she just said.
04:24And she did not attempt to call it Melbourne as if she was some sort of a local.
04:31She just went with Melbourne.
04:32But other than that, I don't know.
04:34What do you think?
04:35I mean, I think that it's mostly nonsense in terms of like, okay, you need 17 days then for a
04:4117 time zone journey.
04:43So if you want to fly to Australia, you better go there for at least three weeks because the first
04:48two and a half weeks, you're going to be absolutely wrecked because you can't assimilate.
04:53It's not going to be an assimilation sensation.
04:56It's going to be you like, oh, my God.
04:59I'm 14 days in and I still don't feel good.
05:03That part of it is nonsense.
05:04The math of it is nonsense.
05:06It was a little intense to me.
05:08Right.
05:08That, as she said, it takes a day to get over every time zone.
05:12Anybody ever been to Idaho or Arizona?
05:15You ever been there?
05:16Both.
05:17Yeah.
05:17And then you're just like, oh, my God.
05:19Yeah.
05:19I need a day.
05:21I need a day.
05:21Hey, I think it's eight o'clock, not nine o'clock.
05:25No, I don't feel a damn thing if I go one hour.
05:28Right.
05:29I flew to New Zealand with my mother-in-law at the time.
05:32She was 64 and we were there for 10 days and it probably took a day.
05:37Maybe two.
05:38But beyond that.
05:39Yeah.
05:40It's like, you know, you go ahead and like go to sleep and you wake up when people wake up
05:45where you are and you're fine.
05:47Well, the other question would be like, so wait a minute, the Rams are showing up and they have to
05:51go on the 17 hour flight.
05:53Right.
05:53And they only have basically 26 hours to assimilate.
05:59What does that do to their digestion or whatever?
06:02I guess her point would be it's too fast for it to even matter.
06:06Here's what she said about the Rams schedule.
06:09What the Rams are doing, so this is in complete contrast to the 49ers, they're going out right before.
06:17So what that means is their body clock is going to remain aligned to L.A. time leading up to
06:22the game.
06:23They're going to be sleeping normally, training normally.
06:26And I personally think this is a much better strategy to address this massive change in time zones.
06:3410.35 a.m. in Melbourne is 5, around 5 p.m., we said, right, on L.A. time and
06:43Pacific Standard Time.
06:44So the late afternoon, early evening, that is the body's time of peak physical performance.
06:51So we know, and they've actually studied this based on Monday Night Football, we know that's a time of high
06:58peak performance.
06:59So if they stay on that Pacific Standard Time with no attempts to convert, they are giving themselves the best
07:07opportunity to perform at the highest level.
07:10Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Kathy Goldstein.
07:12Yeah, yeah.
07:13And I would applaud.
07:14Rams by 12.
07:16Exactly.
07:16But what about the Rams on the back end?
07:18Because what she said is, we've actually studied this.
07:22And I feel like that was Kelly Stafford.
07:25And maybe, I mean.
07:26Text line says she sounds like Kitty from That 70s Show.
07:29Which is actually really strong.
07:31Like, they flew 17 time zones away.
07:35The Rams are doing this right and the 49ers are doing it wrong.
07:41Exactly.
07:42And so she may be right on the front end, but on the back end, Rams, like, what happens when
07:48you fly in in adrenaline?
07:50Well.
07:50You play well and then you fly back and I know they don't play until Monday.
07:55It was crazy.
07:56Exactly, Kelly.
07:57I think what you're bringing up is actually an interesting question that we don't talk very much about.
08:02Because all we care about is how do they perform on Thursday night.
08:04Right, right.
08:05What does happen afterward?
08:07In other words, the Rams.
08:09Well, the Rams 55 hour experience sounds like hell in a bottle.
08:15Like, are you kidding me?
08:16Because they're going to turn right around.
08:18Okay, you're going to be on the ground for 27 hours.
08:22Right.
08:22And then boom, get back on the plane and fly right back.
08:26That sounds awful.
08:28You will literally be 35 hours out of about a 70 hour period you'll be on the plane.
08:35Right.
08:35Awful.
08:36But do you get back to normal faster?
08:40Because you never really left.
08:43Your body never really left trying to stay on Pacific time.
08:47Meanwhile, the 49ers have all become Australians.
08:50Totally.
08:51And so then they'll come back and they got to do the whole thing over again.
08:55Listen, I don't know what's right.
08:57I don't know what's wrong.
08:58I agree with Trent Williams.
08:59This has probably taken up way too much of our time in our headspace over the last three weeks.
09:05But the bottom line for me is this.
09:09Both of these teams are billion dollar industries with super smart scientists who both came up with plans.
09:18And so, like, I'm not saying.
09:20I know most people are like, what the Rams are doing sounds awful.
09:23I agree.
09:23But I also, the Rams are not dumb.
09:26Like, they came up with this and they've got their reasons.
09:30And I think what she's talking about, I think those are their reasons.
09:33That's the only reason we play it.
09:35I don't know who Kathy is or if she's on to something or not.
09:38She's a doctor.
09:38Yeah, but I think she, I think she's detailing.
09:42Because most people are like, what the hell are the Rams thinking?
09:44I think that's what they're thinking.
09:46Right.
09:46They're thinking like, you know, you flash in and you hope that adrenaline will carry the day.
09:50And then you flash back out and your body never has to adjust, quote unquote, to wherever you were.
09:56And so, you play the game and you get back on the plane and you might think, okay, we were
10:01just like in New England or we were in Miami.
10:04Whatever we were, like, you sleep for 17 hours on the way back and you leave on Friday and you
10:09get back and it's still Friday.
10:10And you don't play again until the following Monday.
10:12And so, you do have like 10 days to recoup on the back end.
10:16I just wonder, like, what the players will say.
10:19The Niners who have been there for, like, forever, right?
10:22Well, the Niners, I think all the players are going to say they knew what they were signing up for.
10:27And the players are going to say they can handle it.
10:31That's what the players are going to say.
10:32Because they think they can handle anything.
10:33They're NFL players.
10:34They think they're bulletproof and, like, they're going to try to go perform at their absolute best.
10:39The thing that I push against is when people go, well, this is going to be a great test case.
10:44We're going to see how it works out.
10:46Well, no, the only way you would actually get that is if the exact same people did it two different
10:50ways.
10:51And how did you perform better?
10:53The Rams and the Niners are not the same team.
10:56One of these teams might be way better than the other team.
10:59And so, you can have different, like, if the Rams win by seven on Thursday night,
11:04I'm not going to be like, well, they hacked that system.
11:08They might just be the best team in football.
11:11Or they might get, like, a tip six where, you know, a pass gets deflected at the line.
11:15Not a pick six, but a tip six, which turns into a pick six.
11:19But that might be what actually, you know, turns out to be the big play in the game.
11:24Or the Rams might run the wrong way and score a touchdown for the Niners
11:27because they flipped their world upside down and they hadn't acclimated yet.
11:30Exactly.
11:31Exhausted.
11:31I mean, the whole thing.
11:34Can I tell you something else that I want to talk about with regard to this trip?
11:37Oh, and I love this.
11:38And you shared it earlier on our thread.
11:40And I was thinking the exact same thing.
11:43This is not a criticism because far be it from me to care.
11:46I don't care about this.
11:48But I want to bring it up because it's a surprise to me.
11:52Okay?
11:54The NFL, in fact, I have found out today, has been sending quote-unquote ambassadors of certain kinds to Australia
12:04off and on all summer long.
12:07Because what is this trip actually about?
12:09What are we trying to do, NFL?
12:11We're trying to cultivate fans.
12:12We're trying to promote the game.
12:14Oh, yeah.
12:14Right?
12:15That's what we're doing.
12:16Okay.
12:16You're trying to promote the game.
12:19So, if what you're trying to do is promote the game, and by the way, Melbourne, Australia, is the Rams'
12:28territory.
12:29There are a number of teams.
12:31Seahawks also.
12:33Australia is, there's like five or six teams where Australia is marked as their territory.
12:38It's why they can play a home game there.
12:40So, that's why the Rams are the home team in Australia.
12:44So, I'm trying to cultivate fans.
12:47I'm trying to promote the game.
12:49What have the 49ers been doing since they arrived?
12:52If any of you are on social media, you've seen it everywhere.
12:56They're doing interviews.
12:57Yep.
12:58They're doing press conferences.
12:59They're hanging out with kangaroos.
13:01They're hanging out with kangaroos.
13:02Apparently, there's a dog with a Niner jersey running around.
13:06They went to the stadium, Debo, and a bunch of groups.
13:09They went to the stadium to another sporting event to check the 100,000-person venue out and connect with
13:18the fans to the point where everything I keep hearing is that this stadium in Australia is going to look
13:23the same as all the other stadiums that the Niners visit.
13:26A sea of red.
13:28Why the hell is the NFL letting the Rams do it this way?
13:32Why do the Niners have to go do all the talking?
13:35All the glad-handing.
13:38All of the cultivation sensation that is happening right now.
13:43Again, I'm not crying foul.
13:45I don't care.
13:46I hope the Niners are having a great trip.
13:48But this is shocking to me in watching the way that this is all playing out that the NFL, with
13:55the Rams being the home team, they chose to fly the Niners out there.
14:00The Rams did.
14:01They chose this game.
14:03And they get to sit here in Los Angeles while the Niners kiss kangaroos for a week?
14:11That's, to me, that doesn't make any sense.
14:14It does not make any sense.
14:15But if you think about a couple things, one, the fact that the 49ers have put the, you know, hard
14:21knocks franchise at bay all these years, which is why they have two, not one, but two games this year
14:28that are international.
14:29And I do think that that, from the league, is intentional.
14:32And the other piece of it is, like, the Niners' ownership right now is not strong.
14:37They're not a strong ownership.
14:39And I'm not just looking at Jed York in East Ohio.
14:41I'm looking at the overall influence of the Niners.
14:45It doesn't seem like they have that real authoritative, you know, no, we're not going there a week early unless
14:52they are, kind of thing.
14:53Well, I don't know that this comes from owners of teams.
14:58I don't know how the conversation comes together.
15:00But I wouldn't think that the Niners necessarily, or the Rams, would have influence over how someone else does it.
15:09I look at it just solely from the league circles.
15:12Like, if I'm trying to build fans, if I'm trying to drum up support, again, they've been sending employees there
15:21for months now.
15:23Okay?
15:24They've been sending people out there in order to promote the game.
15:28And so why would you allow the Rams to do this?
15:33Is it not incumbent on them?
15:34It's their area.
15:36It's their home game.
15:37They chose the 49ers to go out there.
15:39And as a league, you're going to let them do none of this.
15:43By the way, it's not even just that they didn't go a week ahead of time.
15:46They're showing up to sleep and play and leave.
15:50They will meet no one.
15:54No one.
15:55Like, I don't even know.
15:57McVay may have one press conference.
16:00I got one press conference.
16:01He's got one press conference.
16:03And that's it.
16:05Play gone.
16:06Very surprising to me that the league didn't say, hey, guys, we're going to need you out there to drum
16:11this up a little bit.
16:13It's the first time we're going.
16:15That's all.
16:16I think it's very weird.
16:18And I think that piece of it is valid to where, like, okay, you're the home team.
16:22So you go there and you be home.
16:25You don't just get to get there the day before.
16:28You have to go there before.
16:29And you have to do the things that the 49ers are actually doing.
16:32And so that part of it makes me think about the league.
16:35But I don't think the league cares about any of the optics of, yeah, you know, you're the home team.
16:40Go there and be the home team and, you know, be the ambassadors.
16:44They just want, you know, the NFL to be there and a game to be there and have, you know,
16:4985,000 fans or whatever.
16:51But then why are they sending anyone?
16:53Like, I do think the league cares.
16:55If they didn't care, why are they doing this at all?
16:56This is hell for everybody.
16:58Right.
16:58This is a large undertaking.
17:00I think they care to the extent that there'll be a game and, you know, there'll be fans and all
17:05the fans will be there.
17:06They can get excited about the game.
17:09Surprising to me.
17:09That's all.
17:10Yeah.
17:10Yeah.
17:11To me, if I'm the league, it's like, all right, this is, okay, Rams.
17:15Like, this is your market, right?
17:17This is your game.
17:18Right.
17:18This is your market.
17:19And it's your market.
17:20Exactly.
17:21I'm not going to, like, determine what you do completely while you're out there.
17:25But, like, we're going to need you there.
17:27How about for three days?
17:29Like, and if you want to go for two weeks, go for two weeks.
17:33But, again, just watching what the Niners are doing, it's like, why are the Rams not there?
17:41It's just weird.
17:43It's weird.
17:43It's weird.
17:44The Niners are doing this all by themselves.
17:46You can hear the laughter at the press conferences.
17:49Everyone's talking about how mad Australia is about, and when I say mad, like, meaning excited.
17:55They're so excited about this.
17:57And the Niners are just doing this all by themselves.
18:00Right.
18:01Okay.
18:01Well, and think about the Super Bowl where, you know, every time in the Super Bowl you fly in on
18:05Sunday,
18:06the week before, and imagine if a team decided, you know what, we're going to fly in on Friday.
18:11Great point.
18:11Even though the Super Bowl is in Miami, and, you know, you might be playing in L.A., you're like,
18:15you know what,
18:16we're not going to fly in until Friday, and, you know, we'll go ahead and get ready for the game
18:20in that fashion.
18:22There's no way the league would allow that.
18:24That's exactly what I'm talking about.
18:26Right.
18:26If this is going to be some sort of a flagship thing, get your people out there to promote it.
18:31Right.
18:32Let's go to Armando in San Leandro.
18:34Hey, Armando, we thank you for the call, man.
18:35What's up?
18:37Oh, man.
18:38Hey, you know what?
18:40The Rams have no chance to win on this game.
18:43No chance.
18:45Man.
18:45When my wife and I went to Europe, to Germany, it was an 11-hour flight.
18:50When we came back, she said, hey, honey, are you going to work the next day?
18:54Yep.
18:54I'm going to work right after we land.
18:56I'm going to work the next day.
18:57Big mistake.
18:59Big mistake.
19:00Big mistake.
19:01Oh, my God.
19:02I was throwing up.
19:03I had a headache.
19:04I was this.
19:05I was that.
19:05I would say, I will never do that.
19:07And that's only 11 hours.
19:09And Australia, oh, my God.
19:10It's a different ballgame.
19:13So, yeah.
19:14If the Rams pull this one off, I'm going to be very, very impressive.
19:18But they have no chance.
19:20No chance.
19:21Armando, I hope that you're right.
19:24Kukush?
19:24Yeah, Kukush.
19:25Lock it up.
19:26I just keep thinking to myself, we're not going to come out of this with some sort of document on
19:33how to do this.
19:34Again, like, we would need the Niners to go out there the two different ways and sort of play a
19:40scrimmage.
19:41And then they could report back on which one felt better.
19:44But the Rams might be the better football team.
19:47They might be.
19:48And, you know, Stafford might drop back to pass and fall asleep in the pocket.
19:51That would be amazing.
19:53Actually, if you do that, the Niners might actually get their first half.
19:57Maybe.
19:59Crazy.
20:00Like, last year, maybe that would have been the key.
20:02That could have gotten them a sack or two if the quarterback would just drop back and pass out.
20:06Stafford back to pass.
20:08He's falling asleep.
20:09It must be the time difference.
20:11Oh, my God.
20:12Richard Sherman says Niners are going to win.
20:14Richard Sherman podcast.
20:15I just think the travel factor is going to be a factor.
20:18I think that Kyle's going to find a way to try to neutralize his pass rush to some degree.
20:25It's the first game of the season.
20:26You've got to work out the kinks and wrinkles.
20:28And Kyle's going to have this team as prepared as any team.
20:32Stripling's going to probably have a really, really impactful game.
20:35You know, not being able to be doubled because Mike Evans is going to take the attention.
20:39And if you don't double Mike Evans, if you don't show him the attention he deserves, then he's going to
20:43make you pay.
20:43I got San Francisco 27-24.
20:47I got the Niners going.
20:48Yeah.
20:4927-24.
20:50This gets lost in the sauce because all we did all offseason was worry.
20:55The Niners have some dogs, man.
20:57Right.
20:58They got players.
20:59They've got things they can do this year that they couldn't do last year.
21:02And you were saying earlier that, you know, the models are saying that all three of the best teams in
21:07the West will make the playoffs.
21:08So that means that the Niners won't go 0-4 against Seattle and the Rams.
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