Sean McVay would like the NFL to spread the international love around a little, and he is not being subtle about it. Word came down Friday that the Rams coach is hoping his team does not draw another Australia game, and that he would prefer not to think about Australia at all for a very long time. That is what happens when you fly to the far side of the planet to serve as the home team and come home with a lackluster season-opening loss to the 49ers.
I have a soft spot for this kind of honesty from a head coach. Most of them give you the company answer about growing the game. McVay gave you the answer of a man who has looked at a flight manifest.
What did Sean McVay say about the Rams Australia game?
The substance is simple: he is trying to put the trip behind him, and he would rather the league hand the next one to somebody else. That is the whole of it, and I am not going to dress it up with quotes I do not have in front of me. The mood, though, is unmistakable. Losing a season opener stings on any continent. Losing one after crossing more time zones than a touring band, in a game where your franchise was the designated host and never got to feel like a host, sticks to you differently.
And the opponent matters. This is the 49ers, the division rival McVay has spent his entire tenure measuring himself against. You do not want that particular result as the first line of your season's ledger, and you certainly do not want it filed under a stadium you needed a 14-hour flight to reach.
Why the NFL sent the Rams to Australia
Because this is what the league does now, and has been doing for two decades. The international series is not an experiment anymore, it is a fixture, and somebody has to give up a home date to make each new market work. The Rams drew Melbourne for the NFL's first crack at Australia. Someone always draws the short straw, and the short straw is always dressed up as an honor.
checked the almanac: the NFL's first regular-season game outside the United States was 2005 at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, and 103,467 people turned up to watch the Cardinals beat the 49ers. The league has been chasing that noise ever since, one new country at a time.
| Year | Site | Game | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Mexico City, Estadio Azteca | Cardinals vs 49ers | Cardinals 31-14, crowd of 103,467 |
| 2007 | London, Wembley Stadium | Giants vs Dolphins | Giants 13-10 in the rain, first regular-season game in the UK |
| 2022 | Munich, Allianz Arena | Buccaneers vs Seahawks | Buccaneers 21-16, first regular-season game in Germany |
| 2024 | Sao Paulo, Corinthians Arena | Eagles vs Packers | Eagles 34-29, first regular-season game in Brazil |
Every one of those was a milestone for the league and a logistical tax on the two teams who played in it. The difference now is volume. When there was one London game a year, the burden rotated politely. With Mexico, Germany, Brazil, Ireland, Spain and now Australia in the rotation, the math gets real for a coaching staff trying to script a Week 1 and a Week 2 out of the same body clock.
What comes next for the Rams
They get back to normal life, which is the entire point of McVay's complaint. The Rams host the Giants on Monday night, September 21, in the late window that gives them one extra day to feel like a football team again instead of a travel party.
The broader backdrop is not helping anybody in the NFC West. The league is in the middle of an early injury wave, with star defenders and receivers already out around the conference, and the reporting has the 49ers and Rams among the hardest-hit rosters. Depth gets tested in September every year. It gets tested harder when part of your September was spent recovering from a flight.
I will be watching how the Rams look in that Monday night window, specifically whether the offense that showed up flat in Australia moves at McVay's usual tempo once the sleep debt is paid. That is the honest measure of what the trip cost. Not the loss column. The legs.
