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If Arizona hosts Los Angeles Rams vs Minnesota Vikings due to fires, it wouldn’t be a first
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There could still be one more football game played in Arizona this season. On Wednesday, the NFL announced that it has a contingency plan to potentially move Monday night’s wild-card game between the Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams to State Farm Stadium due to ongoing wildfires raging across Southern California.
For now, the league is preparing for the game to take place at SoFi Stadium, the Rams’ home in Inglewood. But if a change of location is deemed necessary, the Cardinals’ stadium in Glendale would play host, giving Arizona its first playoff game — excluding Super Bowls — since the 2015 divisional round.
It would, however, not be the first time that NFL teams have had to move to Arizona. Here are the other times that similar moves have occurred:
2020: San Francisco 49ers
Due to the spread of COVID-19 in the fall of 2020, Santa Clara County briefly banned all contact sports. That forced the San Francisco 49ers to play three home games at State Farm Stadium. The team used fields near the stadium as its practice facility and stayed at the Renaissance Phoenix Glendale Hotel and Spa across the street.
2007: San Diego Chargers
It would not be unprecedented if the Rams had to make Arizona home due to fires. The then-San Diego Chargers practiced at the Cardinals’ Tempe facility for three days in 2007 due to the Witch Creek Fire, which forced 40 members of the organization to evacuate their homes. The team returned to San Diego for their game that Sunday, defeating the Houston Texans.
2003: San Diego Chargers
Four years earlier, the Chargers had a Monday Night Football game against the Dolphins moved to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. Again, the move was due to fires in Southern California, which caused poor air quality. The Chargers’ home field, Qualcomm Stadium, was also used as an evacuation center during the fires. Both teams flew to Arizona on game day for a game Miami won, 26-10. The NFL distributed 73,104 free tickets to the game.