BY DAN BEGNOCHE
Coach Joe Philbin doesn't expect much to change work-wise this weekend as the team travels across the Atlantic for its Week 4 game in London. In fact, he plans on keeping things exactly the same, including the amount of time the players have to themselves.
Sunday's game at Wembley Stadium in England offers plenty of opportunity for distraction. For the young roster, it's a potentially once-in-a-lifetime trip where they'll surely want to experience some of the more famous sights and hot spots in Europe.
For the football side of it, Philbin told reporters Tuesday that schedules will remain as regimented as always leading up to the game, as the team aims to keep things somewhat normal minus the change of scenery.
The threat of any diverted focus, however, will continue to fall on the shoulders of the players.
"We want to keep it the same basically," Philbin said. "We have to go over earlier -- we're leaving Thursday evening -- so we're going to get there Friday and get right into a normal day Friday. We're gonna get right to work, get practicing, get our meetings going. We'll give them some time Friday night. If they were here Friday night and they wanted to go out to dinner, they can go out to dinner. I'm not going to mandate what they do in their off time. That's their time.
"We just want to make it as similar to what they do every time they play a football game as possible. I'm not going to mandate every single second of their time. I think it'll be a great test for the maturity of our football team."
At 1-2, the team cannot afford to be off their game across the pond. The team has an early bye week in Week 5, followed by three road games in five games, which includes matchups in Chicago and in Detroit.
Miami was last overseas in 2007, when the team lost 13-10 to the Giants.
