LOS ANGELES — It’s not often that an NFL head coach gets a text from an opponent checking in on him the week of a playoff game. But Rams head coach Sean McVay received messages from his Minnesota Vikings counterpart Kevin O’Connell and Vikings offensive coordinator Wes Phillips, both former Rams staffers, checking in on him in the wake of the fires that have ravaged Los Angeles County this week.
“It’s one of those deals that almost doesn’t feel real,” McVay said, “but it certainly is real to the people that are affected. Praying that as many people are OK, and when you see the amount of people that are affected it’s one of those deals that it gives your perspective.”
As McVay walked away from the podium following his Thursday press conference, a plume of smoke was visible south of the Rams’ practice field in Woodland Hills, rising from Sullivan Canyon as helicopters and planes went to work putting out a new flareup. As practice began, a second fire would flare up to the west, and this one would change the trajectory of the day and week entirely.
In the West Hills, the Kenneth fire had ignited, in close proximity to many communities that Rams players, coaches and team employees call home. Its smoke grew and grew, visible from the practice field over the team’s headquarters.
McVay called the team together at the end of individual drills and the media viewing portion, an atypical move at that time in practice. The players took a knee around him as he delivered a message.
A few minutes later, Rams staffers could be seen hurrying to their cars as the parking lot thinned out.
Ninety minutes after that, the NFL released a statement announcing the Rams’ Monday night home playoff game had been moved to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. The broadcast schedule of 5 p.m. on ESPN and ABC remained the same, but the team now will have to wait a little longer to host a playoff game at SoFi Stadium for the first time since 2021.
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The team had hoped to avoid this fate, believing a playoff game in the county could be a benefit to members of the community after all the hardship and terror it has faced since Tuesday.
“It’s a tough thing to watch on the news, to drive around, to see,” quarterback Matthew Stafford said prior to the announcement of the reschedule. “It’s just really sad to see what’s going on. Obviously, a bunch of people doing everything they possibly can to try and get things under control and get people back to their normal as quickly as possible. But feeling for a bunch of people that have been affected all across the city.”
But the NFL had to consider both air quality and the availability of first responders as support for stadium safety and medical services. As the Kenneth fire joined the Palisades and Eaton fires, as well as many others this week, questions about both factors could not be definitively answered.
Most Rams home games require around 100 firefighters, police officers and paramedics, collectively, mostly from Inglewood. Many first responders from the city have already been deployed to help combat the brush fires.
So now, with a fire burning in their immediate backyard, the Rams (10-7) must try to carry on ahead of their wild-card game against the Vikings (14-3). VP of medicine Reggie Scott and chief of staff Carter Crutchfield have monitored air quality, McVay said, and determined it was safe for players to practice Thursday.
Whether that remains the case for Friday and Saturday is unclear. But McVay said Thursday that if air quality becomes an issue, the Rams would consider moving practice to SoFi Stadium, for what would be its only use this week.
“Once you get in here, there’s plenty of football to think about,” Stafford said. “I know when guys leave here, there’s things that guys are having to figure out at home or go through or people to think about. While we’re here, it’s full focus, 100% on the Vikings and the challenges that they present. But we’re also human beings and care for the people of our community.”
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