Nobody is going to confuse San Francisco and Mexico City. One has rolling hills and an ocean view. The other is an urban sprawl, 7,349 miles above sea level, with mountains in the background. Still, the Minnesota Vikings may be wise to trade a trip to the Bay Area for one in Mexico’s capital.
Minnesota’s Week 11 game against the San Francisco 49ers in Mexico City likely will feel more like a typical road game. They’ve been the “away” team against the New Orleans Saints and the Cleveland Browns in London and felt like the home team. However, the Niners played in Mexico City in 2005, and that game likely will feel like a road contest.
It’ll be similar to the Pittsburgh Steelers game in Dublin. Playing the Steelers in Pittsburgh is a more daunting task. Still, the Steelers fans meaningfully outnumbered the Vikings fans there, and it mattered in a close game Minnesota lost down the stretch.
But that’s the tradeoff the Vikings are willing to make. Traveling overseas for two games over ten days did a number on the team. Still, they avoided playing in Cleveland and Pittsburgh, two of the toughest road crowds.
Time will tell if the Vikings go overseas for that long again. It grew their brand, but it also wore the team down before a gauntlet stretch coming out of the bye.
Odds are, Minnesota ends up in a similar place to last year, regardless of whether they went overseas. J.J. McCarthy suffered multiple injuries and wasn’t ready to start one year removed from his meniscus tear. Still, 10 days in Europe is a long stretch in the middle of the season. It had to have affected them in some capacity.
Mexico City will be more manageable. It’s only a 4:40 flight from Minneapolis and is in the Central Time Zone. They’d have to fly four hours out to the Bay Area anyway, and play in the Pacific Time Zone in front of a more hostile crowd.
The Vikings have typically flown in for a Friday practice when they’ve played one-off games in London. Then, they have an off day, followed by the game. However, Minnesota won’t have to deal with jet lag. They may instead practice in Colorado or another high-altitude area, then fly to Mexico City.
Minnesota also didn’t schedule a bye week after the Mexico City game, another indication that they’re treating it as a typical regular-season game. They have a Week 7 bye and will be at the end of a challenging stretch in their schedule. Still, an away game against the Niners wouldn’t be much easier in that spot.
Both teams will have to adjust to a new environment in Mexico City. They’ll be playing in a soccer stadium at altitude in a densely populated metropolis. However, that will feel manageable for Minnesota’s players who spent 10 days overseas last year. It won’t feel like a typical Week 11 road game in Northern California, but it also won’t be an European excursion.
How the Vikings come out of the Mexico City game is more about what they do before the game than what happens after. They will have played in Detroit, against the Buffalo Bills at home, and then in Green Bay before heading across the border. Assuming they survive that stretch, they get the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers before the New England Patriots. They’ll have time to adjust after crossing back over the border.
Minnesota’s season started unspooling after their European trip last year. They lost to the Philadelphia Eagles after the bye, then had that painful Carson Wentz game on the road against the Los Angeles Chargers. Still, they had lost a winnable game to Atlanta in Week 2, and quarterback play during the toughest part of their schedule was as big a factor as the trip overseas.
Ultimately, the Vikings are probably making the right tradeoff playing a game in Mexico City. They don’t have to fly as far and into a different time zone, and they avoid a road game in the Bay Area. Whether they succeed this year likely has more to do with how they handle a challenging early slate than with traveling to Mexico for a Week 11 game.
