NFL air miles: Saints rank 11th in travel time for 2026 season

A midseason flight to Paris means the New Orleans Saints rank 11th in air miles traveled in 2026, per Bill Speros for Bookies.com. The Saints will travel 21,892 miles for each of their eight road games and that overseas trip for an NFL International Series game with the Pittsburgh Steelers, who rank 26th at 14,183 miles. With nine games to play away from the Caesars Superdome, the Saints had better nail down their rest and recovery program to keep everyone game-ready.

Ideally, the Saints would play on Thursday Night Football in Week 6 before flying to France in Week 7, with a bye week positioned in Week 8. That would give them extra time to rest and prepare before and after the Steelers game, allowing them to fully recalibrate for the back half of their schedule. But we'll have to wait and see if the NFL schedule makers made those concessions. The possibility of playing in one of three London games before or after the Paris matchup had been floated (as the Minnesota Vikings did last year with games in Dublin, Ireland and London) but the NFL didn't take that direction.

No team will spend more time in the air than the San Francisco 49ers, who have been assigned two international games in Melbourne, Australia as well as Mexico City. San Francisco's 38,105 air miles are just ahead of the Los Angeles Rams (their opponent in Melbourne's season opener). And the gap between the Saints and 49ers is wider than how many miles eleven different teams will travel this season. The will do the least flying at just 8,740 miles. We'll see if that makes a difference when the two NFC South rivals square off twice this yeaer.