The Saints flew Monday. The Steelers fly Thursday.

On Sunday, October 25, the New Orleans Saints and the Pittsburgh Steelers play at the Stade de France, the first NFL regular-season game ever held in France [1]. Kickoff is 2:30 PM in Paris, which is 9:30 AM in Pittsburgh and 8:30 AM in New Orleans [1]. The 2 teams are getting there in opposite ways, and that makes this game a rare side-by-side look at the biggest decision in team travel: when do you get on the plane?

2 travel plans, 1 kickoff

The Saints flew out Sunday night and landed in Paris on Monday, October 19 [2]. That gives them almost a full week on local time before the game. The Steelers are practicing at home in Pittsburgh. In Cam Heyward's words, they head to Paris Thursday night and arrive Friday morning [3]. That works out to about 50 to 55 hours on the ground before kickoff [3]. Same game, same stadium, same kickoff time, and a 4-day difference in how long each team's body gets to catch up.

What 6 to 7 time zones does to a body

During the week, Paris is 6 hours ahead of Pittsburgh and 7 hours ahead of New Orleans. Flying east is the hard direction. A 2026 review in Sports Medicine puts the body clock's catch-up rate at about 1 day per time zone eastward, and roughly half that or less going west [4]. In a small controlled study of 10 trained men flown across 8 time zones, sprints were slower and endurance test scores dropped more after flying east than after flying west [5]. Across more than 11,000 NBA games, home teams carrying eastward jet lag won less often and lost the point, rebound and shooting battles more [6]. In rugby, illness rates were 2 to 3 times higher when teams played more than 5 time zones from home [7]. Paris is past that line for both teams.

The math on each team

Using that rule of thumb, the Saints need about 7 days to fully shift and they are getting about 6. They should take the field close to adjusted. The Steelers need about 6 days and are getting about 2, so they will be roughly 2 hours into a 6-hour shift. These are estimates from the research, not anything either team has published, and every player adapts at a different speed. Still, the gap between the 2 plans is real.

Both plans can work. The middle is the problem.

There are 2 legitimate ways to play a game this far from home. You can go early and fully adapt, which is what the Saints chose. Or you can go late and try to stay on home time, so a 2:30 PM kickoff in Paris feels like a 9:30 AM game in Pittsburgh. The catch with the second plan is that staying on Pittsburgh time in Paris means going to bed around 5 AM local time, while hotels, meals, meetings and the walkthrough all run on Paris time. Most teams drift. 2 days in, you are not on Paris time and you are not on Pittsburgh time. Sleep is broken, meals land at the wrong hour, and energy peaks at the wrong time. That in-between state is where travel costs the most, and it is where a short trip tends to leave you unless every hour is planned.

The clock change almost nobody is planning for

Europe ends daylight saving time at 3 AM on Sunday, October 25, game day [8]. The United States does not change its clocks until November 1. That means the gap between Paris and Pittsburgh shrinks from 6 hours to 5 overnight, and the gap to New Orleans from 7 to 6. Phones update themselves. Bodies do not. Any staff timing wake-ups, light, caffeine or the pregame meal off a fixed offset will be an hour off on the 1 morning it matters most.

So who has the edge?

On paper, the Saints. To be fair to the Steelers, the research also shows that a lot of what looks like jet lag is plain away-game disadvantage, and a long stretch away from home has its own costs [9]. Talent, health and the matchup will decide most of this game. Travel decides the margins, and NFL games are won on margins. Teams do not lose because of a flight. They lose when nobody plans the 72 hours around it: when to sleep on the plane, when to see daylight, when to eat, when to hold meetings, and what to do about a clock that moves the night before kickoff. We will post the result and what it does or does not tell us on Monday.