The Falcons' week-long trip to Seattle was one planned far in advance, with a lot of moving pieces involved.
When then NFL announced the schedules for all teams in April, the Falcons were faced with a decision to make. Of their four games out West, where would they stay in between the Denver/Seattle split?
For Atlanta's director of logistics, Spencer Treadwell, the decision was pretty much made when he picked up the phone to call the University of Washington while weighing the options.
"It was a combination of a couple things," Treadwell said of the decision to stay in Seattle. "The most important piece of the puzzle was that the University of Washington was on their bye week and was a willing host."
The decision was made and the planning commenced. Treadwell, and logistics manager Brandon Ruth, blocked 199 rooms for two nights in Denver.
Players and staff were asked to drop their luggage off for the week in Seattle on the Wednesday before the team left for Denver.
The luggage was shipped to Seattle, and upon late Sunday night after the Falcons' defeated the Broncos, the travel party would find their bags located in their respective rooms.
Treadwell states that the Falcons had over 22,000 pounds of equipment on the flight to Denver.
When asked what the most difficult part of planning a trip of this extent was, Treadwell said he wanted to make sure the process was as seamless as possible.
"Trying to make it feel as much like home as possible," Treadwell said. "[I wanted] to make things seamless and distraction free."
On average, the Falcons used 140 rooms a night, in addition to 11 meetings rooms.
Atlanta tried to emulate their exact home routine in Seattle, and head coach Dan Quinn knew he had the team in place to pull off a trip like this.
"We did know that if we had an opportunity, this would be the type of team that you would do that with," Quinn said. "They have a standard that they connect with one another, that bond that they have is really strong. We have terrific leadership. The environment changes, the location changes, but the standard and process doesn't."
Quinn also points out that this 10-day trip can make his team even closer than they already are, and in turn, make the brotherhood in the Falcons' locker room even stronger.
"It's almost back to camp mode," Quinn said. "Time spent talking ball, talking life with one another, so that connection even grows stronger. It's a close group that's even gotten tighter [during] the week. When we we have that connection, where they are just wanting to go ball out for the guy right next to them, you have to connection off the field as well as on the field, fortunately we are part of a group that does that."
