Los Angeles wildfires: NFL moves wild-card playoff game between Vikings and Rams to Arizona
The game will now be played at State Farm Stadium in Glendale

By Tyler Sullivan

In response to the wildfires that are ongoing around the Los Angeles area, Monday’s playoff matchup against the Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams is being moved to Arizona, the league announced in a statement on Thursday evening. Specifically, the game will be held in Glendale at State Farm Stadium, the home of the Arizona Cardinals.

“In the interest of public safety, Monday’s Vikings-Rams Wild Card game has been moved from SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, CA to State Farm Stadium, the home of the Arizona Cardinals,” the league’s statement reads. “The decision was made in consultation with public officials, the participating clubs, and the NFLPA.”

The announcement adds that the game will be played at its previously schedule time of 8 p.m. ET and will air on ESPN and ABC. Meanwhile, tickets are slated to go on sale at 10 a.m. local time (1 p.m. ET) on Friday morning through SeatGeek.com for Rams season ticket holders and will be released to the general public at noon local time (3 p.m. ET).

Monday’s playoff matchup was slated to be held at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, but the fires that have engulfed Los Angeles County and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes now has the NFL pivoting to a safer location.

This is a pivot from what the Rams noted earlier on Thursday, saying in a statement that the game was on schedule to be played at SoFi Stadium. In what he called a “unique week,” Rams coach Sean McVay said the team was moving with “the full expectation” that the game would go on as originally scheduled.

While the NFL has moved games in the past due to extreme weather, this is unprecedented for the playoffs. According to CBS Research, this will be the first non-Super Bowl postseason game played at a neutral site in the Super Bowl era.

wv wrote:

Enh. The team i wanted least in the playoffs — Vikings. Ah well.

w
v

Where is your thirst for revenge?

I’ll take the Vikings. Darnold looked erratic under pressure last night. Philly is the one team I think the Rams have no shot of beating, and Washington is the one team I think the Rams would almost certainly beat. The other teams are a coin flip, I think, including MN.

zn wrote:

Gareth

Look out for the 49ers.

If they lose today, they get the last place schedule.

So while we get Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Detroit or Minnesota
They would get Cleveland, NY Giants and Chicago.

Their schedule will be ridiculously easy. I’m rooting for them to win today to make it a little bit harder.

Plus they will most likely face a schedule that does not see 4 teams coming off their Bye or mini-bye weeks. Just about everything that could go wrong, went wrong for them this year.

zn wrote:

Sarah Barshop@sarahbarshop
Along with Matthew Stafford, the Rams will rest Cooper Kupp, Puka Nacua, Kyren Williams, Alaric Jackson and Kevin Dotson against Seattle. Sean McVay already ruled out Rob Havenstein (shoulder) earlier in the week.

…

Which means the 2 starter at OT are Noteboom and McClendon.

Inside word is the Rams are performing an experiment to see how beat up, spooked, and injured Garoppolo can get before he just retires from football.

Reportedly, the bets being placed by Rams front office staff says it will happen soon after the game, though a lot outside money says it will happen during the game.

This is all happening, reportedly, because Rams coaches and front office staff are all crazy diehard fans of the movie, The Purge.

I have nothing to contribute here, but I would like to acknowledge that this is a quality post.

I saw the practice table somewhere, and it showed that Tutu did not participate due to personal reasons.

zn wrote:

“No, I think there’s a difference if you’re talking about playing for a bye,” he said. “… Here, you’re talking about either the third or the fourth seed. You could sit here and try to play all these different things, [but] we have to be ready to go. Somebody’s coming in here and that’s going to be an excellent team that earned an opportunity to be in the postseason. If you want to do what you’re going to do, you can’t necessarily duck anybody. You always have to weigh that risk-reward of we want to continue to make sure that all these games are important. There’s maybe some flexibility that you have based on your injury situation.”

I approve of this message.

I can’t think of a single good reason for these to exist. I can think of a couple of dark reasons.

The most obvious is that people are influenced by the “herd.” The second reason would be that any AI profile could operate as a “magnet.” Float ideas out there, collect certain kinds of reactions from people, and compile the data.

Here's one of the AI-generated profiles Meta is testing out: pic.twitter.com/qc1vU7lZRP

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 3, 2025

wv wrote:

OK, so the rams are either gonna play the
Packers or Commanders, OR,
Lions or Vikings (whichever loses).

Do we have any preferences?

I dunno. All four seem like tough match-ups to me. I guess, i would rank them this way, maybe.

Lions
Packers
Vikings
Commanders.

I guess, the rams would have the best chance against a rookie QB.

The Rams just always seem to play like shit against the Packers. Its annoying.

They lose to the Lion, but at least they play well against the Lions.

Hard for me to see the Rams beating the vikings twice. I dunno.

w
v

I think I prefer the Lions. They have 5 defensive starters on IR now which is the highest # of any team in the playoffs since 1970. The Rams took them to OT in Detroit without a functional OL, with Nacua getting knocked out of the game, and a defense that was formed with a bunch of children playing their first NFL game ever. This would be in Los Angeles, and the Rams are as healthy as they have been all season. The Lions would also be coming off a devastating loss to Minnesota that sent them out to LA, when they were the team sitting at the #1 seed all season long. They would have to fight to overcome the knowledge that their team was falling apart down the stretch. Their minds would have doubt in them where they had complete confidence most of the season. The difference between these two teams in the last two games was narrow, and I think their circumstances close that gap. Plus the Rams defense has steadily improved all year, and their OL has gelled. The Rams would need to get a couple of stops. Get to Goff, or get a big turnover, or stop them on one of Campbell’s dumb 4th down calls, and the Rams win. Plus this would be just karmic payback, and I’m here for it. The Lions fans finally believing this was their year, only to have Stafford whack them when they finally embraced Goff. I would rooting for the Lions if their path did not cross with the Rams, but I think this would be the most interesting matchup from my point of view as a fan. Just simply the game I would most like to watch, come what may.

If I had to put $5 down on the team I think they will play, it would be the Commanders. I just think the Rams are gonna beat Seattle, even with their JV team. Seattle hasn’t got a damn thing to play for, and probably half those guys already have their reservations booked for a beach somewhere. I don’t know if their coach can get them to care enough about this game. Maybe he can. I dunno. Gut feeling only, obviously. I think the Commanders are the only team the Rams would be favored against, probably rightly so. Rookie QB, as you say.

#Packers star CB Jaire Alexander, who has been dealing with a PCL tear and hasn’t played since Nov. 17, is likely out for the season, per coach Matt LaFleur. He’s set for surgery. pic.twitter.com/Hxzph3yS4H

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 1, 2025

If only Limmer had been no good, they wouldn’t have this problem.

zn wrote:

I didn’t propose that. I assume Stafford will be out against Seattle. That just means the final game is less fun for me. I didn’t argue that Stafford should play in that game. I just accepted that he isn’t but then lamented that that comes close to meaning the end of fun to watch games.

I expected you were going to say that. I should have edited it out. Saying you want to see a quality, meaningful game is different from wishing to see it in Week 18. I suppose what I was trying to say is that I think the chances of us getting that in the WC round is actually pretty good. I don’t think the apprehension we are all expressing is based in any definite reason. The offense has not played well recently Why?

Lost their mojo isn’t a thing.

There are reasons. There are factors. And there is no reason to think those factors will be in place 2 weeks from now. The game will be in LA. They have a “bye,” basically. They can focus their film study and game-planning on potential playoff opponents, and give some recovery time to anybody who has a health issue. Why wouldn’t they play their best game of the season on that day? They are healthier than they’ve been all year.

Well. Yeah. It doesn’t look good. This team is not flying high in all phases of the game, and Kupp “looks washed” (Cowherd), and Stafford has thrown half a dozen dropped INTs in the last 3 games.

But just for the sake of shooting the bull on a message board, we should acknowledge that football is especially prone to Recency Bias.

Let’s quickly review the season. Starts off with a narrow overtime loss to one of the NFL’s best teams on the road, a game during which the Rams lost 2 MORE OL and Puka Nacua, and still nearly pulled it off, and only lost because, like, half the defense was playing their 1st NFL game.

That was followed by Hell on wheels for a 1-4 start prior to the bye.

Since the bye…well…everyone knows. They’ve won a lot, and the Defense has grown significantly. More than I would have expected in a season. And the offense was doing fine until the last 3 weeks, starting with a 0-TD performance in SFO. That was followed by a low-scoring, Arctic affair, and then…the Rams’ offense ran out of weather-related excuses against AZ.

What stands out from that? Well, Williams, the OL, and Puka Nacua were fine. Stafford and Kupp were disappointing. That’s what we’re looking at here. I look at Stafford particularly. Uncharacteristically, he has thrown a lot of errant balls over the 3 games. Not just the near-INTs. Some bad throws like Goff used to hoist up every so often. So…why?

He didn’t age 10 years after the Buffalo game. He didn’t forget how to play. He’s had pretty good protection. So, he’s hurt. Maybe he got a bad bruise in his shoulder, or fractured his ring finger, or something. In which case… you know… he could be fine in two weeks.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that something like this is LIKELY. But it’s plausible. And it certainly sounds more reasonable to me than “Stafford and Kupp have hit a wall, and the Rams offense isn’t any good anymore, and defenses have figured out McVay and taken away the passing game.” This is not a 7-9 bullshit offense, even though it has looked like it recently. It’s not.

And at this point, I interrupted my post to go get some evidence to look at, and I have returned with the following screen capture from Statmuse:

Stafford has 6 games this year with a rating over 100, including 4 in a row: NE, PHI, NO, BUF.

He are Stafford’s spray charts (fingers crossed I don’t screw up the formatting on this post) since Buffalo with my emphasis on passes over 10 yards:

Against Buffalo, Stafford was 11/15 over 10 yards.

San Francisco: 1/7 over 10 yds.

NYJ: 2/4 over 10 yds with 1 INT.

AZ: 4/8 over 10 yds.

He hasn’t been throwing as deep for 3 games in a row. Weather was certainly a factor in SF and NY, but maybe not the only factor. All I’m saying.

I propose that we vote against zn’s proposal for a good game against Seattle, and instead put Stafford on ice until next Monday, then fire him up. That’s my plan. I think the simplest explanation for their woes is that Stafford isn’t healthy. As long as it isn’t a torn rotator cuff or something crazy, he could be back to his 100+ ratings the second weekend of January, and then who knows what happens after that?