The Pittsburgh Steelers had largely the same travel schedule heading to Dublin, Ireland for Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings as they did heading to London in 2013 for their first international game.
Twelve years later, not much changed despite a lot of criticism centered on the 2013 travel schedule, which led to a disastrous showing against the Vikings that year.
Steelers team captain Cameron Heyward has stated multiple times that players and coaches were falling asleep in meetings ahead of that 2013 international game, so having a similar travel schedule raised some concerns.
As the Post-Gazette’s Gerry Dulac reported earlier in the week, the NFL blocked the Steelers from traveling to Dublin earlier in the week to speed up the acclimation process ahead of the Week 4 game at Croke Park against the Vikings.
But according to NFL senior VP of football and international communications Michael Signora, that is not the case. Dulac tweeted Friday morning that Signora says it’s entirely up to the team to decide how early or late they want to travel for the international game.
Michael Signora, the league’s senior VP of football and international communications, said it is up to each team to decide how early or late in the week it wants to arrive for an international game. Sometimes, those decisions are based on hotel and practice site availability
— Gerry Dulac (@gerrydulac) September 26, 2025
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers stated to the media Friday in Ireland that he wishes the team would have traveled over earlier in the week to give the players enough time to acclimate and have a normal week, rather than flying over Thursday night and arriving early Friday morning.
But that just wasn’t in the plans for the Steelers. Head coach Mike Tomlin and owner and team president Art Rooney II were rightly criticized when it was revealed they’d have largely the same travel plan for Ireland. But they were seemingly let off the hook earlier in the week with Dulac’s report.
Turns out, that report was inaccurate as the NFL does not dictate when teams decide to travel for international games. It has nothing to do with a competitive advantage or anything like that. The Steelers simply decided to make Thursday night into Friday morning the time to travel.
Now, they’ll have a Friday practice on the grounds of Carton House, where they are staying in Dublin, and will presumably have a walkthrough session Saturday as well to gear up for Sunday’s kickoff at Croke Park at 9:30 a.m. EST.
We’ll see if the Steelers rolling with a very similar travel itinerary has a negative impact like the 2013 fiasco did. One thing is clear though based on Signora’s comment to Dulac: the NFL did not — and will not — decide when or how the team travels internationally.
