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The San Francisco 49ers began their season with two road games on the East coast.
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Rather than shuttle back to San Francisco between games, the 49ers stayed East during the week.
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The result was a small extension of training camp for the 49ers, and a 2-0 start to the season.
The San Francisco 49ers ground out a tough road win against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday to move to 2-0 on the season.
For the 49ers, it was their second East Coast game in as many weeks to start the 2021 season. But rather than seeing the games as a daunting challenge, the 49ers turned a negative into a positive.
After their Week 1 win over the Detroit Lions, the 49ers stayed on the East Coast rather than bouncing across the country four times in just two weeks.
From Detroit, the 49ers relocated to the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia to prepare for their matchup in Philadelphia. The move saved the team energy and also allowed them to have a slightly extended training camp. With everybody together on the road, there’s more time to focus on football and patch up any potential loose ends leftover from the preseason.
“It’s been good, honestly, to go on these trips,” linebacker and team captain Fred Warner told Peter King of NBC Sports. “When we’re out there, our entire focus is on football. There’s no distractions. You wake up, you go to meetings, you go to practice, you get extra work in. Honestly, I see it as an advantage to be able to stay out on the East Coast. We come out on the first game in those situations, we have huge wins, we get adjusted to the time change. Obviously, you see the results from it, with how we’ve performed.”
This is the third straight year that San Francisco has taken advantage of an extended East Coast road trip to start the season. They are 6-0 in those games.
Beyond the extra training camp time and the two wins, San Francisco will also reap benefits from their early road trip as the season pushes forward.
After a 2-0 start, the 49ers now have eight home games left on their schedule, more than any other team in their division. They also only have two more trips East between now and the end of the season.
Staying out of town for an extended road trip has been around the NFL for some time. Still, given the shortened preseason, the 49ers have found a way to hack their schedule and help get an extra bit of focused practice early in the season.
Clearly, the move is paying off.
Read the original article on Insider