How Some NFL Teams Sleep Their Way to the Top
How Some NFL Teams Sleep Their Way to the Top
For decades, the NFL has taken many measures to make sure talent is spread around the league evenly and that every team can have a fighting shot. It’s natural, then, for teams to try almost anything, no matter how wild, to gain the slightest advantage.
This season, however, at least three teams have decided to tackle one of the simplest competitive issues imaginable: making sure their players get enough sleep before games.
The Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers spent the summer tearing through sleep studies—some of them commissioned by the U.S. military—looking for ways they might help their players improve their performance by sleeping more like teenagers. “We’ve looked at quite a few of them,” said San Francisco coach Jim Harbaugh.
Prior to a 1 p.m. game against the Jets in New Jersey this season, San Francisco moved its entire team to a hotel outside of Youngstown, Ohio—not because they had any particular reason to be in Ohio, but to give the team a chance to get acclimated to Eastern time.
And after sleep specialists visited the Jets earlier this year, linebacker Bryan Thomas said the team has made an extreme effort to make sure everyone is sleeping properly. This includes pre-setting all temperatures in the team hotel rooms to the sleep-therapy recommended 68 degrees and recommending players sleep in pitch-black rooms.