CINCINNATI -- When Cincinnati Bengals coach Marvin Lewis got the official word the team would be heading to London this season, he called New York Jets coach Todd Bowles for advice.

The Bengals had never sent a team to London before, so the process was new to Lewis, while Bowles had coached the Jets to their first win in London last season.

What Lewis wanted to know was which worked better for the Jets: arrive a week early and get acclimated, or try to treat the trip as if it were nothing more than a game on the West Coast, and travel later in the week? Bowles said he preferred the shorter route.

That's what Lewis decided would work best for his team as well. That's why the Bengals are trying to operate on a normal schedule this week, holding practice on Wednesday and Thursday at their facility before boarding the plane to London. They'll hold practice on Friday and Saturday in London (in a normal week, the Bengals have a Friday walk-through and a closed Saturday practice), and be on their way home by Sunday night.

"We said we were going to make it as close to a normal [trip] as we could," Lewis said.

One of the reasons for that approach is so that injured players can get treatment at the Bengals' facility, without having to put their tired bodies on a long flight right after playing a game.

Lewis took note of what happened to the last two teams that played the Bengals right before a London game. The Bills boarded a plane to London almost immediately after their loss to Cincinnati last year. Hampered by injuries, they lost to the Jaguars the following Sunday. In 2014, the Jaguars lost to the Bengals in Cincinnati, left for London that same night, then lost to the Cowboys over there a week later.

"We played two teams -- last year Buffalo, the year before Jacksonville -- they were leaving after we played them, we beat them in both games, beat them up, and their teams [were] all over the place, because guys were hurt, they've got to do this, they've got to do that, and it just causes anxiety," Lewis said. "So, in my opinion, the best way to operate is to get everything done [first]."

If there's one argument against leaving so late, it's that players have no time to acclimate their bodies to the time change. London is five hours ahead of the Eastern time zone.

To account for that, Lewis is doing everything possible to get the players to sleep on the plane so they can be ready to practice shortly after the team touches down in London on Friday morning.

The charter flight is not equipped with Wi-Fi, and while the Bengals normally show a movie on their flights, Lewis has nixed that to encourage the players to sleep. Even the normal in-flight snacks of Chik-Fil-A, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and fruit will be swapped out for one big meal.

"We're going to go to sleep on the plane," Lewis said. "When we wake up, it's Friday morning and we've got to be ready to go."