The Minnesota Vikings are scheduled to play the Los Angeles Rams in SoFi Stadium on Monday night, but the issues with the wildfires in the city have raised multiple questions.
The National Football League released a contingency plan that the game would be moved to Arizona if the wildfires made it so teams couldn't end up playing the game due to the fires themselves, air quality, and/or public safety.
Harrison Phillips speaks about playing in the region
There are a lot of factors about the wild card game with the Vikings and Rams. Just from a game perspective, there are a lot of fascinating matchups between the two teams.
From a human perspective, it's a very tough situation. People are seeing their homes and communities burn down and the air quality is really poor due to the fires. It's a bad situation all around and Vikings defensive tackle Harrison Phillips, who is the team's NFLPA representative, had some thoughts about playing the game.
"I just want to be really conscious of the image that that can portray. There are people that I know -- a lot of players in the NFL retire or have homes in California or have ties to California, that whole area -- and you just want to be really cautious of what's really going on outside of this. I understand. I think the [Los Angeles] Lakers canceled their game, and that is an actual indoor facility where [SoFi] Stadium isn't. Some people think it's a dome. It's not."
Phillips is a very measured speaker and isn't usually one of the players who speaks to the media regularly. Being that he's the NFLPA representative, his words have a stronger meaning.
The big aspect that Phillips wanted to drive home when speaking to the media is that he's not speaking about the Vikings getting home-field advantage
"When a hurricane hits a certain location or if a tornado came through and devastated a community, you want to be very cautious of the optics. And again, I strictly say this from a human standpoint, not as a Minnesota Viking who wants a better competitive advantage. That's not where it's coming from."
There should be an answer on whether or not the game will stay in Los Angeles here soon, but it's starting to look less likely.
