Before this season’s game at Wembley, for example, the Jacksonville Jaguars flew out to London early in the week, while the Rams arrived the day before the game and returned to LA immediately after their 35-7 win.
“Some teams will stay near the practice site, some will have lengthy commutes for the players after that travel, when they’re getting over jet leg,” said White. “It depends which team they play for, so it’s the lack of standardisation that feels arbitrary.
“The game requires a certain amount of rest, preparation and restoration in order for players to be safe, so all of that needs to be accounted for if we’re going to talk about [travelling] even further away or having more international games. That’s a matter of negotiation.”
The NFL’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the NFLPA allows up to 10 regular-season games to held overseas per season.
The Minnesota Vikings became the first team to have two international games in the same season in 2025, playing in Dublin and London on successive Sundays, and linebacker Jonathan Greenard said he “would not like to do back-to-back [again]”.
But White said players gave a “good deal of positive feedback because of the way they went about it. That is the trick.”
He added: “It is possible that 16 games worldwide gets to be too much, but that’s for the players to decide once they have all the information.
“We do have some sense of what makes a positive experience when travelling internationally, and we’re collecting data.
“It’s about making sure that the players are at the centre of that debate.”