The Rams left for the United Kingdom Monday morning. This weekend will mark the team's first NFL London game and St. Louis no doubt wanted to get acclimated.
As for the Patriots, their feet will remain on the ground for a few more days.
The players were given Monday off and head coach Bill Belichick briefly addressed the U.K. trip on a conference call.
He did acknowledge that having made the trip in 2009 makes things easier in terms of organization and logistics. But so much has changed since New England played the Buccaneers at Wembley Stadium that Belichick sounded uninterested in comparisons."We have an awful lot of players on our team that are with us now that werent on that trip. Individually, I think there isnt a great deal of experience for that. Organizationally, some of the things we know we have to plan for that we dealt with the last time, we can learn from and maybe improve on. But each year is different, each trip is different, each team is different. I think the needs of this team are a little different than the needs of the 09 team when we went out there."
The Patriots depart on Thursday.
It's a long flight to London, some six hours or so, which is a similar duration to New England's trip to Seattle in Week 6. Altogether, this stretch of season creates a somewhat brutal back-and-forth.
So it goes, said Belichick.
"Its always good to play at home like yesterday, but we know at the start of the year were going to have eight home games and eight road games. For every home game, theres a road game and vice versa. Its all going to come out the same in the end. Theres nothing really we can do about that. Well take them all as they come, like all the rest of the teams do in this league."Extending the NFL's gracious hand across the pond? Perhaps a job for PR."Wherever they schedule them, well show up and play them," the coach said. "Thats really what its about for us."