NFL teams from the West Coast have figured out how to travel to the East Coast and win

Playing NFL games on the road is difficult, but West Coast teams traveling across the country has long been considered one of the toughest tests away from home.

When the Seattle Seahawks, Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers travel to the Eastern Time Zone, players often play games with 1 p.m. ET kickoffs and are forced to deal with tiredness and out-of-whack biological clocks.

But according to SportsInsights, concerns about players from the Pacific coast handling long travel across the country should be a thing of the past.

Since 2003, the five teams in the Pacific Time Zone (the state of Arizona doesn’t observe daylight saving time, so the Cardinals switch to Mountain Standard Time in November and were not included in the study) are a combined 65-70 against the spread in Central time and 82-86 in Eastern time.

But since 2013, those records have jumped to 19-14 in Central time and 25-15 in Eastern time.

In the last three years, teams on the West Coast have made a significant impact on the postseason, including two trips to the Super Bowl for the Seahawks. So it’s easy to discount the recent improvement as a reflection of the West Coast teams being better than ever. But the five teams have actually had a better winning percentage against the spread in road games on the East Coast than the other time zones.

“Adjusting odds for travel is a somewhat antiquated method nowadays,” Odds consultant Scott Cooley told SportsInsights. “The physicality and psychology of athletes these days is far advanced from what it was a decade ago. West Coast teams traveling east for an early start time prepare all week with that in mind.”

When the Seahawks travel to play the New England Patriots in Week 10, they’ll have the luxury of a Sunday Night Football matchup that kicks off at 8:30 p.m. ET, giving players plenty of time to adjust to the time difference. But the Rams won’t have that luxury for a 1 p.m. ET kickoff against the New York Jets.

And for as well as teams have traveled east, there’s still typically slow starts that take time to shake off. SportsInsights’ research shows that West Coast teams play better in the second half than the first half in 1 p.m. ET starts.

Writing off teams that make cross-country flights heading in the opposite direction of the sun appears to be an antiquated idea, though. And there isn’t much reason to write off the Seahawks or Rams when they make long trips in Week 10.