History of relocated NFL games: From wildfires to blizzards to an owner angry at local fans


For the second time in NFL history, and for the first time since the FDR administration, a playoff game has been relocated to a new city.

Monday’s NFC wild-card game between the Los Angeles Rams and Minnesota Vikings was moved from SoFi Stadium to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., the league announced Thursday night, as wildfires ravage the Los Angeles area.

The relocation is not the first time wildfires have affected NFL scheduling, and Mother Nature has had her say in games’ locations plenty of other times. But to happen this late in the season — impacting a game of this magnitude — is a once-in-a-89-year event.

Here are other notable times NFL games have been relocated:

1936 NFL championship

Thirty-one years before Super Bowl I, the Washington franchise — then based in Boston — was set to host the Green Bay Packers in the NFL’s fourth championship game at Fenway Park, which Boston shared with baseball’s Red Sox.

But hometown support for Boston’s NFL team was sparse, and despite closing the regular season on a three-game winning streak to win the Eastern Division with a 7-5 record, only 4,813 fans came to Fenway to watch them beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in the final home game. After winning the division to host the championship game, Boston owner and franchise founder George Preston Marshall was furious with the local fans and decided to move the championship game away from his home field to a neutral location: The Polo Grounds in New York.

Boston fell to the Green Bay 21-6 and Marshall moved the team to Washington, D.C., the next season.

The 1936 game marked the first time the NFL championship was held at a neutral location, and the first time a playoff game was relocated.

1932 NFL playoff game

A formal postseason format wouldn’t be introduced to the NFL until 1933, but the 1932 season featured a league final between the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans to settle a tie atop the NFL standings. It was the first playoff game in league history.

The Bears played their home games at Wrigley Field, but the playoff game was forced to move indoors to Chicago Stadium due to low temperatures, and also team officials who wanted to maximize attendance and ticket sales.

Chicago Stadium had an indoor field, but it was smaller than a regulation NFL field. This caused the game to be played with hashmarks, which was a first in the NFL, and goal posts at the goal line. Those changes worked so well that the league incorporated them into the official rules prior to the 1933 season.

The game also led to evolutions to the passing game, as forward passes were made legal behind the line of scrimmage after a controversial no-call on a potential pass penalty gave the Bears a Bronko Nagurski-to-Red Grange touchdown pass that led to their 9-0 win.

The 1932 game led to the creation of an NFL Championship Game beginning in 1933.

2010 Metrodome roof collapse

A severe Minnesota winter storm dumped 17 inches of snow on Minneapolis, and most devastatingly, on the antiquated Metrodome roof.

Workers were unable to get on the roof to clear the snow due to the storm’s intense conditions, and the weight of the snow caused the roof to collapse, dumping snow over the turf field on Dec. 12.

The decision was made to reschedule the Vikings’ home game against the New York Giants and move the contest to Detroit’s Ford Field. Further collapsing of the roof later that week forced the Vikings’ home game the following week to be relocated to nearby TCF Bank Stadium.

2022 Buffalo snowstorm

Buffalo, N.Y., residents are more than used to lake-effect snowstorms, but a mid-November blast that dropped over 80 inches of snow in some areas proved to be just too much for the Buffalo Bills’ Week 11 hosting of the Cleveland Browns.

Shortly after New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency, NFL officials announced three days before the contest that the game would be moved to Ford Field. Forecasted intense wind gusts were expected to extremely complicate travel plans for the visiting Browns, so the contest was moved to Detroit, where the Bills won their home-away-from-home game 31-23.

In 2014, a severe snowstorm in Buffalo forced a Bills’ home game against the New York Jets to also be moved to Detroit.

2003 San Diego wildfires

The 2025 wild-card relocation isn’t the first time a wildfire has forced a marquee Monday night game to be played in Arizona, as wildfires in San Diego forced a 2003 matchup between the Chargers and Miami Dolphins to be moved away from Qualcomm Stadium.

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A volunteer ushers evacuees into Qualcomm Stadium during the San Diego wildfires in 2003. (Photo: Sandy Huffaker / Getty Images)

The Cedar Fire, which burned in San Diego County from Oct. 25 to Nov. 5 that year, destroyed 273,246 acres of land, largely fueled by the annual Santa Ana Winds, much like Southern California’s 2025 wildfires.

Part of the reason the Chargers’ home game was relocated was because Qualcomm Stadium was being used as an evacuation site.

1989 San Francisco earthquake

The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake shook central California on Oct. 17, causing heavy damage in Santa Cruz County and impacting the San Francisco Bay Area. Its effects were famously captured on the live broadcast of the 1989 World Series being played at Candlestick Park between the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics.

The 6.9-magnitude quake was followed by a week of startling aftershocks, forcing the San Francisco 49ers’ matchup with the New England Patriots five days later to be moved from Candlestick Park to Stanford Stadium.

“We’re obviously concerned about the tragedy that has befallen so many,” 49ers coach George Seifert said after San Francisco’s 37-21 win. “But this game was probably good therapy.”

Hurricane-related relocations

The 2005 New Orleans Saints are the most notable example of hurricanes affecting a team. Hurricane Katrina severely damaged the Louisiana Superdome and forced the Saints to play their “home” games at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, the Alamodome in San Antonio and Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge.

  • 2017 Hurricane Harvey: A preseason contest between the Houston Texans and Dallas Cowboys was moved from Houston to Dallas after the historically rainy Harvey left the Houston area severely flooded. The Texans opted to cancel the contest.
  • 2021 Hurricane Ida: The aftermath of Ida, which made landfall in Louisiana in late August, devastated New Orleans for weeks and forced the relocation of the Saints season-opener on Sept. 12 to TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville.

(Photo: Hannah Foslien / Getty Images)





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