The last of six wild-card games on the opening weekend of the playoffs has been uprooted and moved. NFC wild-card game between the Los Angeles Rams and Minnesota Vikings is being moved to Arizona, the NFL announced on Thursday night.
The game time remains intact and is scheduled for Monday at 5 p.m. PT, but will now be played at the home of the Arizona Cardinals’ State Farm Stadium in Glendale. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. PT on Friday through SeatGeek for Rams season ticket-holders, while the general public can start buying at noon.
Fans who have already purchased tickets for the game in Los Angeles will receive either a refund or a credit toward their season tickets in 2025.
The league said the decision was made “in consultation with public officials, the participating clubs and the NFL Players Association.” The game will still be televised on various ESPN platforms; ABC, ESPN, ESPN+ and ESPN Deportes.
The question loomed for days whether the NFL would move forward with its playoff game, with the Rams releasing a statement earlier Thursday confirming Arizona was the contingency plan. A deadly combination of gale-force winds and months of extreme drought sparked multiple fires in the hills above Los Angeles on Tuesday, which have since displaced tens of thousands of people.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe fires are still burning continuously as of Friday morning, most notably the Palisades fire that razed the Pacific Palisades neighborhood and the Eaton fire hitting the Pasadena area. Neither are particularly close to the Rams’ SoFi Stadium, but the situation has put an incredible strain on local resources, first responders and made it difficult to breath because of the city’s poor air quality.
The Los Anges Chargers do not have an indoor practice facility. Coach Jim Harbaugh said he followed the suggestions of “experts” in changing the practice regiment, so players were outside for roughly 45 minutes, which is half the typical time they practice outside. Harbaugh said they did not consider flying to Houston a head of time and practicing there.
“Our guys did a great job with improvising and adjusting,” he said. “And really, we were able to get as close as we possibly could to what a normal practice would look like.”
Outside linebacker Joey Bosa said he does not live far from an evacuation zone and his fiancée and dog went to Houston early. Bosa went on to say he slept with his phone notifications on loud Wednesday night in case he would have to evacuate.
“Hoping when I get back to L.A., I have a house to go to,” Bosa said.
Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell, who is from the San Diego area, said he reached out to his friend and former boss coach Sean McVay to provide comfort and support.
“There’s really no words you can say other than you’re thinking about them, praying for them and just hoping that things start to turn here,” O’Connell said.
The Rams were already slight underdogs against the Minnesota Vikings according to BetMGM, who went an impressive 14-3 during the regular season but fell short of the division title and the NFC’s No. 1 seed with a Sunday night 31-9 loss to the Detroit Lions. The Rams could have faced Jayden Daniels and the Washington Commanders instead, but chose to rest several offensive starters against the Seattle Seahawks last weekend. The resulting loss pushed them down to the less enviable No. 4 seed.
The NBA moved earlier Thursday to postpone the Los Angeles Lakers’ game against the Charlotte Hornets, previously scheduled for that evening. Lakers head coach JJ Redick is among the many people to lose their homes. The Hornets remain scheduled to face the Clippers in Inglewood on Saturday unless the league acts again.
The NHL’s Los Angeles Kings also postponed their Wednesday night home game against the Calgary Flames.
