Team Travel

Seeing as it's Memorial Day (Happy Memorial Day!) and many people travel on Memorial Day let's take a look at the distances NFL teams will be traveling for their games this year.

1. Oakland Raiders 36,106 miles
2. Seattle Seahawks 26,144
3. Dallas Cowboys 24,746
4. Miami Dolphins 24,546
5. Jacksonville Jaguars 22,230
6. San Diego Chargers 20,186
7. San Francisco 49ers 19,932
8. St. Louis Rams 17,850
9. Arizona Cardinals 17,728
10. Kansas City Chiefs 17,658
11. Philadelphia Eagles 17,572
12. Atlanta Falcons 17,320
13. Washington Redskins 17,268
14. Denver Broncos 17,258
15. New England Patriots 16,722
16. Detroit Lions 16,242
17. Houston Texans 15,848
18. New York Jets 15,130
19. Buffalo Bills 14,932
20. New York Giants 14,016
21. Green Bay Packers 12,812
22. Minnesota Vikings 12,460
23. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 12,082
24. New Orleans Saints 11,268
25. Baltimore Ravens 10,976
26. Chicago Bears 10,704
27. Indianapolis Colts 9,664
28. Carolina Panthers 8,438
29. Cincinnati Bengals 8,222
30. Tennessee Titans 7,958
31. Cleveland Browns 6,084
32. Pittsburgh Steelers 5,896

I've never been a fan of playing games in London. In my opinion, one game over there is too many. This year there are three:

Dallas vs. Jacksonville
Detroit vs. Atlanta
Miami vs. Oakland

The Jaguars, Falcons, and Raiders are the "home" teams. Roger Goodell always claims that all that the NFL does is for the fans. Well, taking a home game away from the fans of three teams isn't for the fans. It's for the NFL without a concern for the fans. The Raiders will be traveling 5,345 miles for a home game. That trip alone is only 551 miles less than the Steelers travel all season. That's ridiculous. This is also the wrong year for the Raiders to travel to London. They are matched against the AFC East this year. That makes for two cross country flights in addition to a London trip. In all, the Raiders have four trips that are more than 2,000 miles. Very nice. Al Davis would bring a lawsuit if he could. He still might find a way. No team should ever have to travel over 30,000 miles more than another team. The Raiders travel distance is only 492 miles less than the Steelers, Browns, Titans, Bengals, and Panthers will travel combined.

The NFL has sure come a long way from the days when all of the teams were nestled together in the Northeast and Midwest.