Eifert vows to be better behaved on this trip overseas

For most of the players on the Cincinnati Bengals roster, this week’s trip to London to face the Washington Redskins will be the first time they’ve flown overseas to play a football game.

But tight end Tyler Eifert has done it before, and he vowed to be much better behaved this time.

Eifert’s senior year at Notre Dame in 2012, the team flew to Ireland to play Navy, and he told a funny story about an ill-advised plan he and his teammates hatched.

“Me and a couple of guys were like, ‘We can’t leave here without trying a Guinness,’” Eifert said of the beer brewed in Ireland. “We got caught trying to order Guinness to the room. We even thought we outsmarted them by going and getting our money exchanged. We told the people ‘Hey, we have exact change. We’ll just give it to you.’

“We were thinking we were being all sneaky,” he continued. “Our operations guy calls and he’s like ‘You are so dumb.’”

Undeterred, Eifert saw his chance to get a Guinness after catching four passes for 22 yards and a touchdown in Notre Dame’s 50-10 victory.

Unlike domestic flights, where the team gets bussed onto the tarmac to load the plane, the players had to walk through the Dublin airport.

“We waited for everybody to go by and we hurried up and ran up to the bar and grabbed one and downed it, just to say we had a Guinness in Ireland,” Eifert said. “We were so afraid of getting caught, we drank it so fast I don’t even remember what it tasted like.”

Eifert’s shenanigans actually began even before the team landed in Dublin. He told another story when asked about sleeping on the long flight.

“They gave us medicine to sleep, and I couldn’t sleep at all,” he said. “So me and my buddy ended up walking around putting pretzels in people’s mouths the whole flight.

“I’m hoping this time we’ll be able to sleep,” he added. “That’s the goal.”

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