The Los Angeles Rams Are Trying to Defeat Time

Usually, when the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams play, it’s a relatively short commute.

But this evening, the teams will kick off the NFL’s first-ever regular-season game in Australia.

The two teams have taken diametrically opposite approaches to preventing the 8,000-mile journey from disorienting their stars.

The 49ers boarded their 16-hour flight to Melbourne nine days ago and have spent the intervening time training, watching Aussie rules football, and winning the majority of local support.

The Rams landed yesterday, just 24 hours before the game.

They’re betting on being in Australia so briefly that players’ brains and bodies won’t notice the difference.

That makes the game the most high-profile test of jet-lag-evasion techniques in American sports history.

Anyone who has hurled across several time zones in one go knows how wide-awake and helplessly sleepy you can feel at inappropriate hours upon landing—a major inconvenience for professional football players, whose career depends on how they perform during one very specific period.

Circadian rhythms can also affect performance in less obvious ways.

Compounds that encourage inflammation, for instance, spike at night, when the body is doing less and can direct more energy toward fighting infection.

A new time zone throws that optimal function off tilt and can cause stomach issues, cognitive impairment, headaches, and mood changes.

Teams at a circadian disadvantage tend to play worse.

One study that analyzed every NFL game from 1970 to 2011 with a kickoff after 8 p.m.

ET found that West Coast teams did better than oddsmakers expected in two out of every three games, regardless of whether they were home or away.