NFL moves Vikings-Rams playoff game to Arizona after days of devastating wildfires in Los Angeles
By GREG BEACHAM
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The NFL has moved the Rams’ wild-card playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings to Arizona after days of devastating wildfires in the Los Angeles area.
The game will be played Monday night at State Farm Stadium, the home of the Arizona Cardinals, in suburban Glendale, Arizona.
The league announced the decision Thursday, a few hours after yet another fire broke out in an area several miles from the Rams’ training complex in the Woodland Hills neighborhood. The Rams canceled the post-practice media availability for their players to allow everyone to get home quickly.
In a brief statement, the league said the decision was made “in the interest of public safety.”
Los Angeles has been besieged by multiple wildfires all week following two days of extraordinary wind across the vast metropolitan area. The newest fire triggered an evacuation order in West Hills, a suburban neighborhood directly northwest of the Rams’ complex.
While none of the fires was burning near SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, the NFL is moving the game amid concerns about air quality, the strain put on the community and the possible demands on police and fire department personnel.
The Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers — who will play a wild-card game at Houston on Saturday — both practiced outdoors this week, but both teams’ coaches were concerned about the air quality, with Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh cutting his players’ normal outdoor time in half.
The Los Angeles area will be at a high fire risk through Friday, the National Weather Service announced.
A few hours before the Kenneth Fire broke out near the Rams’ training complex, coach Sean McVay said he was optimistic the game could be played at SoFi Stadium as scheduled, while realizing uncertainty was unavoidable.
“We would like to be able to play the game at home in front of our fans,” McVay said. “That’s the way that we’re operating, but I can’t control when that decision will be made. … If it’s not in LA, then the game will still be played, and we’ve got to be able to get ready for that.”
Game relocations are very rare in the NFL, but not unprecedented.
In 2003, the league moved a Monday night regular-season game between the Chargers and Dolphins from San Diego to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona, after wildfires in Southern California.
The Rams had a Monday night game against Kansas City relocated from Mexico City to Los Angeles in 2018 because of concerns about the playing surface at Azteca Stadium, and McVay cited that experience as part of his preparation for the uncertainty created this week.
“You acknowledge these things, but you also want to make sure that how you can control making sure that you’re doing the right things is preparing accordingly, while also being mindful that this is bigger than football,” McVay said. “If people you’re directly involved with are affected, you’re making sure you’re tending to that first.”
The relocation won’t have much effect on the traveling Vikings, while the Rams weren’t overly concerned about missing out on the comforts of home. Like most NFL teams, the Rams stay in a hotel on the night before home games to ensure a restful night of sleep.
Before the Kenneth Fire broke out, McVay said no Rams players or coaches had been forced to move or had lost anything to the fire, although some team personnel had been affected.
“We’ve lost power where I am for a couple of days,” quarterback Matthew Stafford said. “We’ve been lucky in that regard, that (loss of) power is the worst thing that’s happened to us. Obviously it’s a tough thing to watch on the news, to be around, to see. Driving around, seeing all that, it’s just really sad to see what’s going on. A bunch of people (are) doing everything they possibly can to try and get things under control and get people back to normal as quickly as possible.”
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