What are Vikings' travel, practice plans for unique two-country trip?

We've known since the NFL schedule was revealed in May that the Vikings were set to become the first team to ever play a football game in different non-American countries in consecutive weeks. Now that unique, unprecedented journey is about to begin.

The first part of the trip isn't anything new to the Vikings, except for the specific location. They're sticking with the approach they used in previous one-off London games in 2022 and 2024 during the Kevin O'Connell era, which is a late-week departure and quick adjustment to the time zone.

The Vikings practiced as usual on Wednesday at TCO Performance Center. They're practicing (mostly) as usual on Thursday. And then they're off. They'll fly to Dublin overnight tonight (and will provide sleeping aids to players who want them). Friday morning, they'll head straight to a walk-through practice at their home for the weekend, the IRFU High Performance Centre. They'll hold a standard practice that afternoon. Sunlight and caffeine will help them power through the day.

After getting plenty of sleep Friday night, everyone should be fairly well-adapted. They'll have some time to explore Dublin on Saturday, and kickoff against the Steelers will be at 2:30 p.m. local time (8:30 a.m. central) at Croke Park on Sunday. It's the first NFL game to ever be held in Ireland.

The next part is where things get different. Instead of flying back to Minnesota after the game, the Vikings will stay in Dublin overnight and then take a short flight to London on Monday afternoon. There, they'll go about their usual weekly practice schedule at Hanbury Manor, which is about 20 miles north of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. They'll get ready to play another game that Sunday, this one against the Browns. And on Monday, October 6, after 10 nights away from home, they'll return to Minneapolis and enter a much-needed bye week.

It's going to be quite the operation. Countless hours of planning have gone into making sure the Vikings can pull everything off without a hitch. At the heart of those efforts are director of team operations Paul Martin and director of equipment services Mike Parson.

"We've got unbelievable people at every layer that go into the planning, the execution of said plan," O'Connell said this week. "And then, I think the best thing that we have here is a bunch of folks that, regardless of what the plans might have been, we're gonna figure it out. There's gonna be some adversity totally outside of our control somewhere. That's kind of the unique parts of these trips that you learn, having done this now, this will be our third time and our first time doing it the way we'll do it back to back.

"We plan, we think about things from always the players' perspective first, and what will help them feel their best, mentally, physically. And then, how do we make sure we do the things football-wise to pair with that, so that by the time we get to either one of these games, they feel like they could be at their best."

The Vikings are 4-0 in overseas games, all of which took place in London. They'll look to keep that perfect record going over the next couple weeks.

If you're interested in learning more, both ESPN's Kevin Seifert and The Athletic's Alec Lewis wrote excellent behind-the scenes stories on the details of the trip, with insight from Martin and Parson.

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