As the 49ers and Rams work through practice squad signings, they’re dealing with a question most teams never have to ask: “Do you have a passport?”
That extra layer comes with the season opener in Australia, where both teams will need any new additions to be able to travel into a foreign country. Players who have been with the clubs all offseason have already been preparing for the trip, but for late additions, the logistics get messy fast.
49ers General Manager John Lynch said that reality has turned routine roster work into a much more complicated process.
“We’re bringing practice squads from the outside. I’ve never asked a potential practice squad, ‘Do you have a passport?’
Those are questions we have to ask now,” Lynch said. “One guy who’s coming into town, his parents are next daying it, because it was at the house.
So there’s a lot of little logistics like that that are complicated by this, but we’re embracing it, we’re having a plan for everything, and we’re getting it done.”
Lynch also said the 49ers’ behind-the-scenes staff has been working overtime to get everything in place for what he called the longest road trip in NFL history.
“There’s a lot, and I think it’s an opportune time to give a shout out to our staff,” Lynch said. “Everything from getting visas, which is much more complicated than I knew, they’ve been outstanding.
They’ve worked in conjunction with the league but most of the work has been done on our part and hats off to those guys for pulling off a monumental task, and it’s not done yet. There’s a lot.”
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