The Vikings take a 10-day, 2-game trip to Dublin and London, an NFL first. How did they pull it off?

The collection of passports for each member of the Minnesota Vikings' nearly 200-person traveling party began more than five months ago, when team operations staff initiated preparations for an unprecedented NFL road trip. Regular reminders to players, coaches and everyone else in the organization going to Dublin and London — to either locate or renew this nonnegotiable prerequisite for an overseas trip — continued throughout the spring and summer until all of them were secured together in one case. Having played four international games over the past 12 years, the Vikings had a plan for the passports — and just about everything else. "It's really nice peace of mind to know that we've got them in hand and the dog didn't eat them the night before," director of team operations Paul Martin said recently. "It's enough stress when we have them, because then I'm worried about the safe getting broken into, let alone having them in 200 households until we leave." The hyper-competitiveness of a 17-game season in a league that has passed $23 billion in annual revenue has created an environment of military-like precision around the lead-up to each game and luxury-resort-like support for the players along the way to help them achieve optimal performance each time they take the field. Those standards aren't lowered when teams travel, whether across the river to Wisconsin where the Vikings play rival Green Bay each year or across the ocean to Europe, where they're settled in this week between games. The pallets in the advance shipment were stacked with far more than just ankle tape and ice packs. "Ranch dressing, barbeque sauces, cereals that they're used to eating," said head performance dietitian Ben Hawkins. As the first team in league history to play consecutive international games in different countries — the Jacksonville Jaguars have done back-to-back games in London — the Vikings as an organization were only interested in accepting the assignment if the football side was on board with it. Moving two road games out of difficult-to-play-in stadiums — from Pittsburgh and Cleveland — to neutral sites where both opponents had to take long flights, adjust body clocks and prepare in unfamiliar surroundings was a plus. The expertise of the team's talented and tireless support staff, from athletic training, equipment and nutrition to operations and security, made the decision even easier. "If this was me booking travel and bringing the orange slices after the game, if it was all those things, I would not be this confident in our ability to go handle these trips," Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell said. "We've got unbelievable people at every layer that go into the planning and the execution of said plan." Well before the NFL schedule was released to the public in mid-May, Martin and his team headed by vice president of operations and facilities Chad Lundeen went to work on the details. The Vikings were already well-versed in London logistics, but with a new landscape to learn for the league's first game in Dublin — the Steelers beat the Vikings 24-21 last Sunday — staff members first visited Ireland in early June to see Croke Park, the team hotel, the practice fields and area medical facilities, just in case. "And maybe a pub or two," Martin said. Then there was the inherent challenge of spending 10 days overseas — and transporting all of the required equipment and requested comforts in time for them to be waiting for the players upon their arrival last week. The deadline for packing up the two semi trucks? June 30. After the trip east, the gear was transferred to a cargo ship that docked in Dublin about 10 days before the Vikings took the field against the Steelers. From there, a ferry took it to London in advance of the game this Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium against the Browns. Every last item had to be logged on a carnet, an international customs document allowing traveling individuals or businesses to temporarily bring goods in and out of a country without paying taxes on them. "It's basically like we're on tour and we've got two stages," director of equipment services Mike Parson said. As the NFL continues to expand the menu of international games — there are seven this season with a stated goal from commissioner Roger Goodell to get to 16 — a multi-city trip such as this could well be repeated. The league announced last week a commitment to at least three regular-season games over five years in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, starting in 2026 after two games in Sao Paulo, one earlier this month and one last season. Berlin and Madrid are joining Dublin this year as first-time hosts. Melbourne, Australia, is on deck next season. Goodell said Asia is in the queue after that. The Vikings, who've leaned into the global portion of their fan base with marketing rights in the United Kingdom, have provided the NFL a valuable test case with this pond-hopping trip to Ireland and England. "We're really confident in the plan we have in place and the work that we've done with the Vikings leading up to it," said Peter O'Reilly, the league's executive vice president of club business, international and league events. "It's really about learning as we continue to grow and potentially grow the number of international games in the future." All those extra hours spent by team staff members, trying to create a home away from home and have a plan for any of the curveballs that might come their way in a foreign country, were well worth it in the end. "Despite the massive undertaking of what this trip is," Martin said, "this was a good thing for us. That's the only way we're looking at it."