Chiefs leaving for London on Thursday night; "It's not a vacation," Andy Reid says

The Kansas City Chiefs will be practicing at their home facility until they leave for the London game against the Detroit Lions on Thursday night.

Why Thursday and not earlier? Andy Reid said he looked at the history of who has played there and there is no advantage to leaving one day as opposed to another. So the Chiefs will leave on Thursday night and arrive on Friday morning.

"Not that I don't like England," Reid said of their travel plans, "but I just let the guys practice here, sleep in their own beds, familiarity. We'll get ourselves over there and we've got it pretty well-mapped out."

Reid said that he talked to the players multiple this offseason about the schedule for the London week, and he's also using some of his own experience in playing internationally.

"I've had a chance to go to Japan and play over there and, you know, you get off that plane with a few hours difference going there too and you want to just get out and get moving," Reid said. "You want to get your body back the way you want it. Nine hours you have to rest on that plane and then we'll get things going for Friday once we get there."

Even though this is a unique trip, the Chiefs don't have any tourist type things planned in London.

"It's not a vacation, that's not what this is," Reid said. "They can go do that another time. We're going over to play a good Lions football team. I want to make sure we have maximum preparation right here, and understand why we're going there."

On a short week like this with lots of distractions, the coaching staffs could matter. If they do, I'm taking Andy Reid over Jim Caldwell ... even with his 2-5 record.