How State Farm Stadium prepped for Vikings-Rams NFL playoff game in just 5 days

GLENDALE, Ariz.

The NFLs plan for moving Monday nights NFC wild-card playoff game between the Los Angeles Rams and Minnesota Vikings to the Arizona desert actually began months ago.

By July 26, all 32 teams had to submit to the league a calendar showing the events and potential availability of their home stadium.

All days of the week were requested, not just Sundays.

By Week 1, the NFL knew exactly where it would turn in an emergency situation, be it foul weather, a facility breakdown or some other unfortunate event.

Advertisement This is something thats thought out well in advance, said Brian McCarthy, the NFLs vice president of communications.

Many years we dont need to even think about this.

Other years there will be inclement weather thats forecasted.

Well begin a process that you may not ever hear about.

But we need to be prepared.

Its something that we always talk about.

With wildfires raging in the Los Angeles area, the NFL decided on Thursday to move Mondays postseason game at SoFi Stadium 380 miles east to State Farm Stadium in Glendale.

This gave league and team officials less than five days to relocate two football teams, redirect ESPN trucks and transform a stadium.

The goal: To make Monday night look and feel like a Rams home game.

From the start, Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill told league officials the organization would do everything in its power to assist.

Since then, nearly every facet has been involved.

McCarthy said the Cardinals have treated this playoff game as if it were their own.

I think everyone in this country has seen the images from Southern California and is just so moved and emotionally affected by them, said Mark Dalton, senior vice president of media relations for the Cardinals.

And theres definitely a sentiment of, This is something we can actually do to help.

GO DEEPER History of relocated NFL games: From wildfires to blizzards to an owner angry at local fans State Farm Stadium, which opened in 2006, is one of the Wests premier facilities .

It has hosted Super Bowls, Final Fours and College Football Playoff games.

But those events were planned well in advance; this was different.

To start, the Cardinals had to check the work force.

Normal NFL Sundays at State Farm require 3,500 workers, a group that includes everything from parking-lot attendants and security guards to concessions workers and elevator operators.

Nearly all were available.

Advertisement Food? State Farm Stadium was not scheduled to host another major event until Feb.

1, the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship.

Suddenly, the NFL needed to prepare to feed 60,000 people.

On a normal game day, Dalton said State Farm Stadium goes through 4,500 orders of chicken fingers, 3,000 hamburgers, 5,500 individual pizzas, 10,000 hot dogs and 3,500 pounds of corn kernels for popcorn.

The Cardinals worked with Craft Culinary Concepts to quickly stock their stadium shelves.

The field? The stadium had hosted the Dec.

31 Fiesta Bowl, a College Football Playoff matchup between Penn State and Boise State, as well as the Cardinals final regular-season game Jan.

5, but the field was in decent shape.

Dalton said it had been re-sodded after Arizonas Dec.

15 game against the New England Patriots.

The trick was getting the field painted, a chore usually started earlier with touch-ups throughout the week.

With more time, the Cardinal red in the end zones might have faded but it remained visible.

Turf director Andrew Levy needed 200 gallons of Blue (Pantone 2736) and Yellow (Pantone 109) to paint Los Angeles in the north end zone, Rams in the south end zone and the Rams horned logo at midfield.

We dont have that sitting around at the Home Depot, said Dalton, so it had to be ordered.

The paint arrived Saturday, and using the same stencils used at SoFi Stadium, the field crew got to work.

(An amusing complication in all this: The Rams, Vikings, Cardinals and NFL league office are all on different time zones.

If you ask, Whats been the biggest challenge? Quite frankly, its, What time is it?' McCarthy said, jokingly.) On Friday, the Cardinals sent two of the organizations planes to Los Angeles to pick up the Rams , their team, coaches, support staff and families.

Six dogs and two cats also made the trip, which reveals the seriousness and uncertainty of the situation.

The Rams public-address announcer will work Mondays game.

The Cardinals staff will work the Jumbotron but it will use Rams content.

Advertisement While these details were finalized, the Arizona equipment crew cleaned out the Cardinals locker room at their facility in Tempe, where the Rams practiced and prepared.

Although the Cardinals did not make the playoffs, their lockers remained occupied.

The locker of rookie receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., for example, still had shoes, fan mail and practice gear.

This week an equipment staffer stuffed it all in a labeled box and prepped the locker for a new occupant, Rams receiver Puka Nacua.

And thats times 74, said Dalton, referring to the number of lockers in the room.

Our guests have arrived ..

pic.twitter.com/dCVtd27Ddw Mark Dalton (@CardsMarkD) January 11, 2025 This is the fourth time since 2000 the Cardinals have assisted NFL teams.

In 2003, the NFL moved a regular-season game between the San Diego Chargers and Miami Dolphins to Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, where the Cardinals played at the time, because of wildfires near San Diego.

David Binn, a long snapper on the Chargers then, said he was golfing that week when a man from the pro shop drove out to the sixth hole and informed him the Chargers were having an emergency meeting and needed to reach him.

In a phone conversation Saturday, Binn said the Chargers also went through a similar experience in 2007, when they traveled to Phoenix to practice because of wildfires and smoke.

(That game, against the Houston Texans, ended up being played in San Diego.) He said players felt the seriousness of the situation.

Families were losing their homes.

People were dying.

But they also were able to compartmentalize.

You go through that empathy, Binn said.

At the same time, you have a job to do and you focus on that.

I think a lot of guys learned to separate the two.

It felt to me maybe a little bit like training camp.

Youre in this different facility, out of town.

You have your routine and a facility available to stick with the routine.

Thats the NFLs hope for Monday.

State Farm is not SoFi Stadium.

But for one night, the league has worked hard to make it as close as possible.

(Photos courtesy of the Arizona Cardinals).

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