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In the National Football League, every team has to play eight road games. Some of them have to travel a significantly greater distance to do that than others do. When it comes to their 2015 travel schedule, the Minnesota Vikings will be flying fewer miles than most of the teams in the NFL.
According to the folks from CBS Sports, to travel to their eight road games, the Vikings are going to be traveling 14,394 miles, a figure that puts them 19th in the National Football League. The team also doesn't have a road trip of more than 2,000 miles this season.
CBS Sports got their travel numbers from Pro Football Reference. Here's the distance they have for each trip, with the "total mileage" making the assumption that the team returns home after each game.
Week | Opponent | Distance |
1 | San Francisco 49ers | 1,574 miles |
4 | Denver Broncos | 701 miles |
7 | Detroit Lions | 542 miles |
8 | Chicago Bears | 355 miles |
10 | Oakland Raiders | 1,573 miles |
12 | Atlanta Falcons | 907 miles |
14 | Arizona Cardinals | 1,284 miles |
17 | Green Bay Packers | 257 miles |
And for those of you that like visual representations of these sorts of things, here you go.
The Vikings' longest road trip of the year. . .by a whole mile. . .will be their first trip of the season when they head to San Francisco. The Niners have the most arduous road schedule of any team in the NFL, as they'll fly 27,998 miles, and they're not even one of the teams that are making a trip to London this year.
As far as the rest of the NFC North, the Lions will have the greatest distance to fly this year, as they'll travel 20,272 miles thanks to having a game in London for the second straight year. The Packers have 15,108 miles to travel this year, while the Bears have the least taxing travel schedule in the division, going only 11,830 miles.
Are you making any road trips to see the Vikings this year?