49ers were originally supposed to host Vikings in Week 1

The 49ers have their share of NFL schedule wrinkles in 2021, but one small caveat is they were supposed to host the Vikings in Week 1, per a report.

The San Francisco 49ers are scheduled to travel more miles than any other team in the NFL this season — over 28,000 round-trip miles, to be exact, according to ESPN’s Brian Burke.

That’s frequently one of the many NFL schedule headaches many a West Coast team will face over the course of a season. Unlike those East Coast teams, like the Philadelphia Eagles having to travel a puddle-jumping flight to New Jersey to take on the New York Giants, West Coast squads like the Niners have to face the reality of extensive travel.

The league is trying to cut down on three-game road trips for teams this year, especially those far outside of their own divisions.

And it appears this might have had an impact on determining what San Francisco’s schedule was supposed to be this season.

49ers were supposed to open up at home vs. Vikings in Week 1

In NBC Sports’ Peter King’s Football Morning in America column last Monday, King described how the desire to cut down on three-game road trips likely influenced the early portion of the 49ers schedule:

"In 2017, the schedule had seven teams with three-game road trips; this year, there are three. In 2017, five teams followed road Monday games with road Sunday games; this year, there’s one (Miami, Weeks 16, 17: at New Orleans on Monday, at Tennessee on Sunday). Back to what got fixed in travel disparity in Schedule 102,844.Instead of Minnesota traveling to San Francisco and Arizona in Weeks 1 and 2, the league shifted Week 1 to Cincinnati, saving the Vikings three hours of travel time round-trip in the first week."

Read More: Game-by-game win-loss predictions for 49ers 2021 schedule

The Vikings still have to travel in Week 1. But a road trip to visit the Bengals, followed by a Week 2 bout against the Arizona Cardinals before hosting the Seattle Seahawks in Week 3, helped with those three hours of travel time cut off.

At the same time, though, the Niners now end up having to visit the Detroit Lions in Week 1 before traveling to take on the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 2 back east.

It’s likely San Francisco will employ a similar tactic it used in recent years, staying somewhere back east (perhaps in Youngstown, Ohio) to accommodate the layover. But why the Vikings didn’t employ a similar approach, or why the league gave the Vikings a closer road contest while asking the 49ers to travel a further distance in back-to-back weeks is unclear.

Either way, the Niners and Vikings will still face off against each other this season, Week 12 instead of Week 1, and the entire context for both teams is likely going to be very different than it would have otherwise been against each other in Week 1.