Sending the Packers and Eagles to Brazil was no small feat

It took time green Bay Packers It took him 10 hours and 40 minutes to reach Sao Paulo, Brazil on his Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. Philadelphia EaglesThe Airbus A320, flying on a similar route, had a slightly shorter flight plan, at nine and a half hours one way.

And that’s just whatever can fit in the cargo area, in addition to the players and coaches.

But when it came to taking all the gear needed for both teams on the road, it took more than three months — three airplanes and a cargo ship — to get everything delivered to the first NFL game in South America, which kicks off at 11:00 p.m. 8:15 PM ET Friday at the Peacock.

“It’s tough every week,” Packers director of logistics/team travel Matt Klein said. “It’s probably a little more difficult.

“It’s a big job, whether you take the team to Chicago or Detroit or to Brazil. I think there are a lot of things involved that are different than traveling within the States.”

It’s been an exhausting task for those directly involved in the planning. Eagles assistant general manager John Ferrari joked that there were only three days since the trip became official in April when he and team and travel logistics director Dan Ryan didn’t talk about Brazil, and one of those days was July 4.

“A lot of thought has to be given to creating a normal atmosphere for the players and coaches when they get there,” Ferrari said.

Taking an NFL team on the road is a This process is unlike any other in professional sportsNow try doing this in a stadium that has never hosted an American football game, in a country where the NFL has never been played and Players have also raised security concernsAccording to the Brazilian state, São Paulo has tightened security ahead of the Games.

“There’s a lot of education involved at the beginning,” said Joe Valentine, the NFL’s manager of game and team operations. “For example, airport officials have to understand this isn’t like football. We’re going to have 40,000 pounds of equipment for each team. (NFL teams) come in with a travel contingent of 190 to 200 people. It’s not 60.”

“It’s not that they can’t execute it, but they’re trying to set expectations that this is very different from what you’re used to doing – and that applies to every aspect of team operations.”

Packers punter Daniel WhelanThe locker at Lambeau Field is the closest first-year equipment manager Chris Kuenn and his staff get to most of their daily work.

“We have to get everything we have out there as well,” Whalen said before the trip. “It’s a lot of work for those guys.”

He doesn’t even know the half of it.

Even before it was announced on April 10 that the Packers would be the Eagles’ Week 1 opponent, Klein and a team from the Packers traveled to Brazil along with Eagles officials, including Ferrari and Ryan, to survey the situation. Cleveland BrownsTeams vying to be the Eagles’ rivals also sent representatives to inspect the stadium and practice facilities and consider hotel options.

In June, Klein returned to São Paulo with Packers performance nutrition director Adam Korzun and met with the hotel about the food. Eagles performance nutrition coordinator Stephanie Coppola also coordinated with her team’s hotel to ensure the desired food quality and preparation. While the Packers transported their own drinks and snacks (their own venture), customs limited what could be brought into the country.

“They’re completely reliant on the hotel and their chefs to make all of their food,” Valentine said. “They’re not sending any meat or anything like that. They’re just trying to match it with their nutrition.”

However, what the Packers and Eagles sent has been in Brazil for several weeks.

Three components were used to get everything – and everyone – there:

• Shipping crates stacked on an ocean cargo ship that departed in early June

• A shared cargo plane that arrived in Brazil earlier this week

• Separate aircraft for transport of teams

Valentine described the items carried by boat as “consumables, items that can’t be carried on an airplane” and also basic items needed to play the game in a venue that has never hosted American football.

“It’s basically like we’re starting from scratch in every aspect,” he said. “We didn’t have any of the equipment we had before – poles, down markers, goalposts, goalpost pads, benches. Everything that goes on the field had to be sourced. That was all part of our ocean freight.”

Everything going on a cargo ship had to be listed on an ATA Carnet, which is essentially a passport for the goods. The painstaking work of listing items one by one took weeks.

“If I send a box that has, let’s say, four T-shirts and three sweatshirts and two pairs of shoes — or whatever,” Klein said. “You have to say it has two pairs of Nikes and they’re made in Thailand, and then the shirts are made somewhere else. And you have to write the size, what it’s made of. It’s the same with every single medical item — a box of gauze pads, 25 rolls of this kind of tape and 50 rolls of this kind of tape, ibuprofen, shampoo that you carry for the locker, it has to be sent because it has chemicals in it.”

“It was on site, it had cleared customs (and) was in our storage.”

The cargo plane carried most of the equipment needed for game day.

The final component was, of course, the team plane. One of the Packers’ initial concerns about playing in Brazil centered on the team’s travel and whether they could find a plane large enough to land at Green Bay’s Austin Straubel International Airport. If not, they would have to take a two-hour bus ride to Milwaukee.

“We eventually did it, but it was a challenge,” Valentine said. “It was difficult to get the type of aircraft they wanted, and then it was also difficult to get it to and from Green Bay.”

The larger plane means more pods for players to sit comfortably in. The Eagles made other adjustments for the long trip. Instead of the usual one meal while traveling by air, they had two. Extra hydration was a focus before and during the flight. And the group was encouraged to stay awake during the trip so they could get a good night’s sleep when they arrived in Brazil on Thursday night.

None of this is cheap.

A league source said a typical road game costs teams between $750,000 and $1.5 million. The Brazil game was far more expensive, so the NFL covered the difference between what it cost the Packers to get to Philadelphia and what it cost them to get to Brazil since it was essentially an Eagles home game.

Ferrari said the league made sure each team had the same amount of resources to move operations overseas to “ensure everything was the same” for both teams competing on Friday nights.

When players take the field at Arena Corinthians, they will see a patch of grass that closely resembles the one they play on at their home stadium. Eagles head groundskeeper Tony Leonard has been working with NFL field director Nick Pappas “for months,” Ferrari said, to create the right conditions for an NFL game.

“It’s a football pitch, but it’s been renovated a bit so it’s in pretty good condition,” Ferrari said.

Then there were last-minute concerns. During mandatory minicamp in June, the team held a “passport day,” as Klein called it, to make sure every player had the proper paperwork. They also planned for what would happen if general manager Brian Gutekunst signed a player to the team who had not been with them in the offseason and didn’t have a passport. In that case, they would take that player to the Chicago passport agency on the offday to expedite the process. That’s how the Eagles had all the necessary visas for the roster change.

Malik WillisThe backup quarterback, acquired by the Packers two weeks ago, said upon arriving in Green Bay that he already had a passport from a Titans game in London last season.

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One thing is that The Eagles have an expert in this area at quarterback. Tanner McKeeJoe has lived in Sao Paulo for a month and in Brazil for more than two years during mission trips. He is fluent in Brazil’s main language, Portuguese, and has been a resource for those curious about what to expect during their stay.

“It’s going to be fun for the whole team to experience the culture – it’s an amazing culture and so I’m excited for everyone to join in,” McKee said.

“It’s similar to the people of Philadelphia: whenever you show a little bit of love, they give you 10 times more love, and so the fans would love to have an NFL team there. Hundreds of Brazilians follow me on social media, contact me, ask me questions, so I think it would be a lot of fun to go there.”

Since the team only arrived Wednesday night and will leave immediately after the game, there won’t be much time to move around. The Eagles also held a small community event at the stadium after the walk-through on Thursday.

Despite all the planning and preparation, some unknown and unforeseen circumstances may still arise.

“The trick is you have to have a lot more foresight in your planning than you did going to Detroit,” Klein said. “There’s a little more trust now because you’re putting the stuff on (the ship and plane) and you’re not there with it.

“Sometimes it’s out of your hands. The great thing about this trip is there’s a lot of things that are out of our control, whether it’s because the league is running it or because it’s in another country.”