Kevin O’Connell has spent much of his life in Southern California. He grew up in Carlsbad, attended San Diego State, and won a Super Bowl as the Los Angeles Rams’ offensive coordinator in 2021 before the Minnesota Vikings hired him as their head coach in 2022.
He’s seen wildfires in Southern California but said the fires currently ravaging Los Angeles hit differently.
“The worst aspect of it is the…lives that have been lost,” said O’Connell. “And then you think about people who lose a lifetime of memories and a home they’ve built with their families. There are a lot of people who have been evacuated who are trying to make sense of all this during this time.”
O’Connell was a freshman in college when the NFL moved a Monday Night Football game between the Miami Dolphins and San Diego Chargers to Phoenix in 2003. He was a senior at San Diego State when the NCAA postponed his game against Brigham Young University in 2007.
However, the fires in Los Angeles this year will affect him most from a football standpoint.
After losing to the Detroit Lions last Sunday night, the fifth-seeded Vikings were supposed to return to Inglewood on Monday to play the fourth-seeded Los Angeles Rams. However, the league moved the game to the Arizona Cardinals’ stadium in Glendale.
Given the significant presence of Minnesotans in the Phoenix area, there should be many Vikings fans at State Farm Stadium. As a result, the line on the game jumped from Minnesota by 1 to 2.5. Still, that meant that Vegas favored the Vikings by a point at SoFi Stadium in L.A., where the Rams beat them 30-20 earlier this season.
The NFL is offering Rams’ and Cardinals’ season ticket holders the first chance to purchase seats. According to NFL VP of Communications Brian McCarthy, the league sold 52,000 tickets during the presale; State Farm Arena holds 63,400 people. However, some of those fans may sell their tickets on the secondary market, especially Cardinals fans whose team is an NFC West rival to the Rams and isn’t playing in the game.
I was at the Cardinals game in 2021 when the Vikings missed a game-winning field goal and lost 34-33 to drop to 0-2. The stadium had to be 80% purple, and that was a September game; the snowbirds hadn’t arrived. It was 100 degrees and intermittently raining in Phoenix that weekend and 70 and sunny in the Twin Cities. There probably would have been a bigger Vikings crowd if they had played the game in December or January.
Similarly, I covered the Week 8 game at SoFi this year, and it was half Vikings fans. That was part of the reason the game was disappointing. Like many of Minnesota’s road games this season, it was a pseudo-home game. That’s the advantage of playing in many Sun Belt cities like Los Angeles, Nashville, and Jacksonville. Minnesotans are already there or willing to travel for a weekend.
Still, there were mitigating factors in the Week 8 Rams game. Blake Cashman was out with turf toe, the Vikings didn’t expect Puka Nacua to return from injury, and T.J. Hockenson was still rehabbing his knee. Cashman and Hockenson are active for this game, and Minnesota will be ready for Nacua. No matter where they play, it will be a close game, but the Vikings should have the advantage in Los Angeles or Phoenix.
I’m eyeballing Minnesota’s crowd size on the road; there’s no way to quantify how many Vikings fans are in attendance accurately. Still, there’s been a difference when they travel to Buffalo and Philadelphia. Most people were wearing blue in the stands when Justin Jefferson made his miracle catch. Eagles fans were notoriously hostile to Vikings fans when they arrived in Philadelphia after the Minneapolis Miracle.
Darnold may have struggled in Detroit because it was one of Minnesota’s few true road games. Green Bay is always full of green and gold (or camo), and Seattle is notoriously loud.
SoFi Stadium is a neutral field. There are no Rams colors because they share the stadium with the Los Angeles Chargers. State Farm Stadium is more neutral because it’s in Arizona. Still, this isn’t like they moved an Eagles game from Philly. The Vikings always have a unique advantage in the Sun Belt and should take advantage of it on Monday night.
