The second game of the 2026 NFL season will be played in Melbourne, Australia by two teams with dramatically different approaches to the intercontinental competition.The San Francisco 49ers took the early-bird approach by flying out across the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, September 2 before landing on Friday morning in Melbourne. (Interestingly, defensive coordinator Raheem Morris turned 50 on Thursday, September 3, but missed his birthday entirely due to the team’s itinerary).As for the Los Angeles Rams, they instead waited to leave for Australia until after Tuesday’s practice. As a result, the team will miss Wednesday, land on Thursday morning in Melbourne and play their opener roughly 24 hours later before immediately embarking on a return flight to LA after the game. In total, the Rams will spend about 30 hours on an airplane to travel more than 15,000 miles.Sean McVay’s team will land back in LA around midday on Friday, local time, after being away from the city for less than 72 hours.The Rams head coach defended the decision with reporters this week without going into too much detail. Sean McVay’s team will land back in Los Angeles around midday on Friday, local time, after being away from the city for less than 72 hours, 30 of which will be spent in the air Projections of Brock Purdy and Trent McDuffie are seen on Flinders Street Station in Melbourne A general view of MCG ahead of the AFL Grand Final match between Geelong Cats and Brisbane Lions at Melbourne Cricket Ground on September 27, 2025’It doesn´t mean that we think we´re right and a different approach is wrong,’ McVay said Sunday. ‘It´s just what we think is best based on the things that we´ve done and what we´ve learned over our time here.’The Rams took a similar approach when playing against the Jacksonville Jaguars in London last season, arriving Saturday before winning on Sunday and quickly returning home. However, that trip began from America’s East Coast because the Rams played the Ravens in Baltimore a week earlier. As a result, the travel was dramatically reduced compared to this week’s globetrotting business trip.Fortunately, all players and coaches will have lie-flat seats for this week’s 15-hour flights.’I feel like we’re just keeping it as normal as we possibly can,’ quarterback Matthew Stafford said. ‘Sunday [is] like a Wednesday for us in our world. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, hop on the plane and go. We obviously have experience with doing it [in a] different direction, all that kind of stuff, I understand last year in London, but it felt like it worked out for us.’The Rams and 49ers will kickoff from the Melbourne Cricket Ground at 8.35pm EST on Thursday in the US. The 2026 regular season will begin a night earlier when the Super Bowl-champion Seattle Seahawks host the reigning AFC-champion New England Patriots at 8:20pm EST.