NFL cooperation helps Bengals prepare for London

It’s not every day one National Football League franchise front office executive willingly sends over entire game plans to another, or will happily talk to anyone – even the media – about strategy and practice structure in the run up to a game.

But when it comes to the league’s International Series in Europe that is the case.

“There’s nothing to hide from any team,” said Luther Hippe, the director of travel for the Minnesota Vikings. His team played in London in 2013.

“We’re all so busy with training camps and the real season and stuff here and then you’ve got to throw this game in the middle of the year. I think a lot of management and owners say if you can help another team just do it and make their life easier because they’re going to repay you someday.”

The Enquirer has learned the Bengals will be a part of the league’s annual slate of games in London in 2016, but planning has already begun – thanks in part to the New York Giants sending over their 72-page, double-sided document from their 2007 trip, and intel gathered from other teams.

According to those around the league who have made that trip, it’s a year-long process to get a team ready for what will be a four-day experience for the Bengals and all are willing to help if asked.

As part of that process, the Bengals' front office traveled to London to watch the Buffalo Bills take on the Jacksonville Jaguars for their first site visit. The group toured six hotels; three practice facilities and the two stadiums – Wembley and Twickenham.

Bengals business manager Bill Connelly, who oversees the team’s travel, got a head start when he was in Europe over the summer on vacation and took a quick tour. His staff will also take a trip with other participating teams in late February or March.

Since the Bengals will be a home team, they will get priority in selecting their hotel and practice sites over the road teams, but with the NFL schedule not being released until April, there is a time crunch to solidify rental agreements.

“So that’s the race to the finish to pick properties pretty quickly in April and May and finish up contracts in May and June and then it’s camp,” said Hamzah Ahmad, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ director of football logistics who has become an invaluable resource for his colleagues across the league.

Connelly has talked to the Jaguars staff, as well as personnel with the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins along with the Giants.

A second trip in May or June is recommended to tour the facilities and meet the staffs that the team will be working with. Connelly hopes to make an additional scouting trip as well.

Getting the team over

While the scouting trips are happening Hippe said a very simple – yet very important – process must take place at that same time in Cincinnati: securing passports for everyone.

“Start that back in April so you can peacefully do it,” Hippe said he tells other teams. “Three-fourths of them will come in fast but it’s the last 30, 40, 50, then you draft guys and college kids.

“They have to go out and get all these passports and you just gotta keep pushing them. You have them here in the summer and then they go home for break before training camp and before you know it you’re pushing August and we flew in September. So, that would be the one thing I say takes time. You’ve got to be buttoned up. You have to have all these passports done, hopefully, by the time you report to training camp and they’re done six weeks before you leave.”

This can be a challenge, especially when a team makes a late roster addition. For instance, the Bengals signed Greg Little just before training camp this summer.

The Bengals will play in late October, so anything the team desires to have with it, from spices, to ketchup, to pancake mix to toilet paper – must be ordered and packed on a trans-Atlantic ship which must depart in July before the team.

And the Bengals will make sure one important element to their off-field team is available as well.

“The chef from the team,” Hippe said. “I would highly recommend that. If any teams ask me I would say the one thing you have to do is get your chef from your headquarter as well. They just have different tastes over there. Not that the food is bad by any means, it’s just going to totally taste different than what we’re used to.”

The Bengals use Aramark to feed the team at Paul Brown Stadium and the company has a presence in Europe as well, so the two will work together to make sure that part of the trip is as seamless as possible.

While the league continues to examine what they can do overseas as a collective, each individual organization that heads over has to turn inward and examine how they can best make it work.

It’s a process that also continues to evolve.

In an deep dive into how the Jets prepared for their early October trip to play the Miami Dolphins, the New York Times reported that the Jets’ senior manager of team operations made two scouting trips to London and mapped out everything from the team’s gate arrival to shipping over 5,000 items to help replicate the Jets’ domestic game week experience.

The Jets spent 11 months preparing for 65 hours spent in London as new head coach Todd Bowles elected a short trip – much like Marvin Lewis has decided upon for the Bengals in 2016.

Mike Tomlin and the Steelers did the same thing in 2013, and the Jaguars made a short trip this year for the Bills game as opposed to weeklong trips in 2013 and 2014.

The work week and game day

There is a reason why the short week has struck the fancy of head coaches.

“You’re able to get all of your game planning, your film work, your full padded practices, your weight lifting, everything done on your home turf, at the facility you’re used to,” Ahmad said. “So the week leading up to it is very, very normal. And then we left Thursday night arriving Friday morning and treated it like an extended west coast trip.”

Ahmad said the key is having the players sleep on the eight-hour flight to London, and once they arrive on Friday morning they eat breakfast and go right back to work as if it were a normal day.

“And make sure they don’t take a nap,” he added. “If you take a nap that afternoon on Friday when you get there, that will throw off the next three days.”

Ahmad said that while the team was a bit fatigued Friday, by keeping to that schedule they felt normal on Sunday.

While the loss of a home game is an inconvenience for the fans of that particular city, the teams have voiced little displeasure in the trips since they began in 2007.

Through a team spokesman, Pittsburgh Steelers co-owner and president Art Rooney II told The Enquirer that they have not had a team come back and say they hated the experience.

That sentiment flows both ways, as the games routinely sell out, including at famed Wembley Stadium, which has served as the sole host the International Series since its inception in 2007.

“There has always been a strong and passionate support for American football in Europe and the NFL has successfully harnessed this over the last eight years, growing the popularity and fan base,” said Jim Frayling, the head of business development for the facility.

“We’re delighted to have played our part in that, welcoming over a million fans through the gates in that time. I don’t think it was a novelty to start, but there was a certain amount of one-off uniqueness to proceedings. Now it feels much more like a regular event, which is a good thing as it shows how sustainable the NFL is in the UK.”

That will change in 2016, as the NFL will add a game at Twickenham Stadium, which is also in London.

“It’s for the NFL and its owners to decide the schedule and the teams that come to play here. We just want to be first in the queue,” Frayling said. “We’re always delighted to welcome new teams and give them an insight into the support here in Europe but also our stadium, a venue we’re very proud of.”

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