Sean McVay probably won’t love Roger Goodell’s latest read on the NFL’s trip to Australia.
Before the Los Angeles Rams dropped a 27-7 Week 1 decision to the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne this past September, McVay and 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan made it clear they weren’t exactly fired up about being sent “to go 19 hours away to play a game” that counted in the standings. But the commissioner doesn’t sound like he’s in the mood to reconsider the league’s overseas ambitions.
“We look at the Australia game as a tremendous success on really every level,” Goodell recently said, according to Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk on Thursday.
The two teams handled the travel differently. The 49ers arrived in Australia a week early to get acclimated to the time change, while McVay had the Rams land about 28 hours before kickoff. That timing drew plenty of attention after a story said the Rams “seemed to approach the Australia trip with the excitement of a teenager asked to take out the trash.”
McVay later leaned into the joke and admitted that sometimes “a dumba-- coach...makes travel plans that puts you in bad spots.”
Goodell didn’t directly say he was aiming that remark at McVay, but he made it clear he thinks the league learned plenty from the setup.
“We learn something from every game and every event,” Goodell continued. “It was a longer trip, of course. The teams took different approaches - I think we learned something from that, too.”
He also came away impressed by the turnout and by what he saw from fans in Australia. The game was staged with American television audiences in mind, and Goodell singled out the crowd of 100,000 on a Friday morning.
“To get 100,000 people on a Friday morning at 10:30 is pretty remarkable,” Goodell said. “I think it shows the passion - I think in all of Australia, I’ve never seen a region or country that had more of a passion for sports, and I think that was demonstrated.”
The NFL has long talked about the idea of having every team play at least one game overseas each season, and Goodell’s comments make it sound as if Australia could be in the mix again.
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