Professional sports teams are creatures of habits, so in a sense, it’s wild how the biggest game of the year — the Super Bowl — comes with an entirely different routine. Teams fly in a week before the game rather a day or two. They have media events for an entire week, and they quickly have to get accustomed to a new facility.
The Chiefs, though, are trying to get creative to make themselves feel at home in Arizona. That included revamping the team hotel to closely mirror the facility in Kansas City.
NFL Network’s James Palmer detailed those changes on Sunday night.
The #chiefs have arrived in Arizona. It’s so hard to try and make Super Bowl week feel normal, so the organization did a really cool thing with their set up at the hotel. Now it feels like 🏠. My report on @nflnetwork pic.twitter.com/nfRyqPFSPm
— James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) February 6, 2023
He said:
“It’s interesting here in this hotel, they want to make it feel as much like Kansas City and their facility there, as possible. I was told all of the meeting rooms that they have, because they have meeting rooms here, the coaches have their own offices, they made these meeting rooms look exactly like their meeting rooms in Kansas City. So when the players walk into them, they have that feel that they are back in Kansas City. It’s a normal week as much as possible while they’re here at the hotel because we know there’s so many other things about this week that are just not normal as a player.”
When you make the Super Bowl three times in four years, you figure out what works and what doesn’t. So the Chiefs have that benefit.
The hotel setup, via Joshua Williams’ IG Story, doesn’t look too bad either. They’ll be spending plenty of time together this week.
We’ll have to see if that actually makes a difference, but Andy Reid is clearly thinking of everything to get his team ready for Sunday night.
