The Ravens will have a longer stay in London than their last visit, hoping it leads to a better performance.
The team departed Baltimore on Monday morning for London and will spend the entire week in England preparing to face the Tennessee Titans at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday.
It will be the Ravens' first London game since 2017 when they were soundly defeated by the Jacksonville Jaguars, 44-7. The Ravens didn't arrive in London until the Friday morning before that in 2017, opting to practice in Baltimore during the week. This time the Ravens planned differently, hoping it will lead to a winning result.
"It's mostly driven by the fact we didn't do well (in 2017)," Head Coach John Harbaugh said. "We did the opposite. There's no data. We looked for it – when you should go out there, what's the science on that. As often is the case, they really don't know."
The Ravens will spend all day Monday travelling and get into the hotel for bedtime. Their off day is Tuesday, giving players a chance to go into London to explore the city a bit. Then they'll have a normal week of Wednesday-Thursday-Friday practice after that.
Adapting to the five-hour time difference will be a challenge, with Sunday's kickoff scheduled for 9:30 a.m. EST. Departing on Monday will give the players more time to adjust their body clocks.
"Hopefully in a week we get in pretty good shape," Harbaugh said. "You're playing basically at 9:30 in the morning. We have practiced in the morning before. Hopefully by the time the game comes around, you've slept there six nights. I'd like to think you'd be pretty well ready to go.
"I think that was a big part of the decision to try and do it this way. Other teams go in and say 'OK, we're not going to mess with it. We'll just stay our own on clock, play at 9:30, get in and out.' It's just two schools of thought."
The Ravens dropped a disappointing 17-10 decision to the Steelers on Sunday, while the Titans (2-3) are also coming off a defeat, losing to the Colts, 23-16, in Week 5.
All-Pro linebacker Roquan Smith said it will be important for the Ravens to put the Pittsburgh loss behind them when they arrive in London.
"At the end of the day, we're 3-2 and 2-1 in the division," Smith said. "This (Pittsburgh) game, it sucks at the end of the day, but we just have to look at it as a learning experience. Take the positives from it and build off the negatives, and that's all we can do. We just look forward to getting over to London, learning from this and moving on to the Titans."
