In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Michael Bidwill got a phone call from Dawn Aponte, the NFL chief administrative officer of football operations.
The wildfires in Southern California were getting worse, Aponte said, and there was a chance the Los Angeles Rams’ home playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings wasn’t going to be able to be played at SoFi Stadium.
That Bidwill would get such a call wasn’t a surprise. The Cardinals owner had often made State Farm Stadium, where his team played, available for league contingency plans. That was determined long before the fires broke out – before the season, in fact, commissioner Roger Goodell said.
In this case, Bidwill began holding internal meetings with decision-makers in his organization as the process began, a day before the league announced the game could be moved to Arizona, and two days before the Wild Card game was officially moved — and played Monday, a 27-9 Rams victory six days after that initial phone call.
“The most important thing is where you end it, which is incredibly well,” Goodell said before the game kicked off on Monday. “It’s been incredibly smooth. But it starts with preparation and understanding how to do these things. We didn’t start on Thursday afternoon. The whole idea is to start as soon as it becomes potential.
“Those contingency plans are in place to make sure we are prepared if we do have to make that call. When we call Michael Thursday afternoon to say, ‘We’re coming,’ we were already a long way down (the road.)”
