L.A. fires force NFC wild card game to move to Arizona

Sean McVay got calls from Minnesota Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell and offensive coordinator Wes Phillips during the past week, but they had nothing to do with their teams’ upcoming wild-card playoff game.

Friendship is much bigger than football, and McVay’s former colleagues were just making sure everything was all right with the Rams coach’s family amid the devastating wildfires across the Los Angeles metroplex.

“It was more just friends checking up,” McVay said.

Several days of wildfires and poor air quality forced the NFL on Thursday to take the extraordinary step of moving Monday night’s game to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

While the neutral site will be a sobering reminder of the devastation wrought on some parts of the Rams’ home city, both teams and their coaches realize they’ve got to focus on football for the week.

“You feel helpless watching it from here, knowing how many people are being impacted,” said O’Connell, a North San Diego County native. “Definitely Southern California, I hold near and dear to my heart. I have some friends who have lost homes, and you just think about the impact it has on so many folks. ... I know (the game) is going to be played, and we’ll just be going to play the football game regardless of where our plane lands.”

Both teams expect to be ready to meet the challenges created in an intriguing matchup when the NFC West champion Rams (10-7) host the Vikings (14-3), who won more games than any wild-card playoff team in NFL history.

These teams also met in Week 8 of the regular season — and the Rams became one of just two teams to beat the Vikings all season long. Los Angeles’ 30-20 win on a short-week Thursday was one of the Rams’ best performances of the season.

Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold is very familiar to football fans in his native Southern California, and the Rose Bowl-winning USC product will make his NFL playoff debut against the Rams — albeit not in Los Angeles as planned. Darnold didn’t play particularly well in Minnesota’s loss to Detroit last week, but he is eager for his first taste of playoff action after seven seasons in the league.



(AP Photo Alex Gallardo)