Amid the NFL’s effort to broaden interest in the game and showcase the league’s most marketable stars, convenience for the member clubs and players often gets lost in the fold. There has always been a massive discrepancy between cumulative travel distances for certain teams, like the Raiders in 2018 and ’19, who were so egregiously hosed that the league’s head of broadcasting offered as close to an apology as we’ll ever see from the NFL.
In 2018, Oakland traveled more air miles than three other teams combined. In ’19, its final season before moving to Las Vegas, the Raiders went from Sept. 22 to Nov. 3 without playing a game at their home stadium. And during that month-long stretch, they logged more air miles than almost the entire NFL. Compared to the comfortable business travel of their colleagues, Jon Gruden was essentially Eudoxus of Cyzicus.
Look at the AFC North this year, for example. The geographically tight division almost always enjoys convenient, short-range travel. This year, the Steelers will travel fewer than 6,500 miles. If they didn’t feel like flying to Atlanta, they could take a bus throughout the entirety of the season. They cross no time zones. This is an immeasurable advantage for breaking in a rookie quarterback who is already going to have his head spinning. Kenny Pickett could be stretched out in a Winnebago filling his gas tank hours before most of his kickoffs and still make it in plenty of time to arrive for the Instagram outfit reveal.
