All work, no play:
The Arizona Cardinals are on a business trip in London, not a sightseeing tour.
LONDON – If Cardinals coach Bruce Arians has his way – and he usually does – his players will learn and see very little of London after spending a week here.
The Cardinals are here to play the Rams on Sunday, not to write reviews of London attractions for Yelp or TripAdvisor.
“If they want to see London, come in March,” Arians said on Wednesday. “We’re here to win.”
So no Big Ben, Tower of London or meeting the Queen, unless she wants to make the hour-long drive from Buckingham Palace to the Cardinals’ hotel on the outskirts of the city, only after 8:30 p.m. or so.
That’s when the players will be wrapping up their work days.
“Yeah, there’s so little free time and so much work time,” quarterback Carson Palmer said. “We’re here to work. It’s a huge game for us; it’s a huge game for the Rams, being a division game. So, there’s not a whole lot of time to get out and about.”
If it’s possible to create your own little world inside the London city limits, the Cardinals and NFL have done so. They have a hotel to themselves and a team of security that includes former members of the special forces. They bus to practices at the training facility of the London Irish Rugby Club (established 1898, same years as the Cardinals were formed). Security guards are stationed at the perimeter of the fields, even though the nearest neighbors are acres away.
“Yeah, that’s the big thing,” Arians said. “Our process, every day – Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays – to not let anything be a distraction because it is such a big game. So, we’ve talked a lot about that and talked to people about how to handle this trip and get physically ready to play on Sunday.”
Arians sought advice from a handful of other NFL coaches whose teams had played in London, including the Saints’ Sean Payton.
All emphasized the importance of arriving early in the week in order to adjust to the 8-hour time difference between Arizona and London. The Rams, in contrast, are spending most of the week in Florida before flying here.
The Cardinals’ players don’t seem to mind being sequestered. Cornerback Patrick Peterson has been to London twice as a tourist and loves the food, the people and their accents.
“Their accents are killer to me,” he said.
He declined an invitation on Wednesday to provide his version of a British accent.
“I try, but it is horrible.” Receiver Larry Fitzgerald travels the world in the offseasons, so a trip to London isn’t a big deal to him.
This is the first time the Cardinals have played outside the country since going to Mexico City in 2005, but they do have experience spending a week on the road during the season.
They did it in 2013 between games against the Saints and Buccaneers and again in 2015 between games at Detroit and Pittsburgh.
It’s hard to tell if those weeks on the road together paid dividends. The Cardinals lost at Pittsburgh after spending a week at the Greenbrier Resort. In 2013, they lost to the Saints and barely beat a bad Bucs team after spending a week at the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota, Fla.
There is value to spending a week together outside of training camp, Palmer said.
“You spend 10 hours on the plane and just kind of getting to know (your teammates),” he said. “You’re not talking football at all. Outside of practice, outside of meetings, outside of walk-throughs, all the things we do, you’re around your teammates all the time.
“You’re going out to dinner at night, working out – just there is no escape, you’re together, you’re at the hotel together. So, I think it’s great for chemistry, bonding, all those things.”