Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger appears to have enjoyed his quick trip over to London, England this past week to promote the 2013 regular season game against the Minnesota Vikings, but he told Sky Sports News on Tuesday that he believes the possibility of London ever having an NFL franchise may prove too much of a logistical challenge to work.
“I think it would be really difficult because obviously, the flight,” said Roethlisberger. “You\’d have to fly half the time; you would have to go over there, and teams would have to come over here. But I think even more than logistically, your family is back in the states. You have to come here. If you get released from a team, you have to fly all the way back. To deal with the family part of it would be really hard, so I don\’t know if it could logistically work.”
While London has hosted regular season games for a few years now, the players as a collective unit seem pretty against the idea of the NFL ever having a team in the English capital. Cincinnati Bengals team representative Andrew Whitworth made it clear last month what he would do if he ever landed on an NFL team that moved to London.
“I would hope that I was financially able to quit,” the tackle told Cincinnati.com. “That\’s what I would hope, because if I was, my papers would be the first one in.”
While it appears almost certain that London will never get an NFL franchise, Roethlisberger has no problem with the league playing a couple of regular season games on the other side of the pond every year as he feels it is very positive both for both the fans and the players.
“I think it’s neat for the players to be able to travel abroad if they\’ve never left the country to come over here and to see a different country and a different lifestyle and see fans from over here,” he said.
The game between the Steelers and the Vikings will take place on September 29 at Wembley Stadium.
