An NFL Game Might Take Place in U.S. Bank Stadium This Week
Josh Frey
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With the Minnesota Vikings heading to London to take on the New Orleans Saints this week, the assumption has been that U.S. Bank Stadium would be vacant on Sunday. That may no longer be the case. An NFL game might take place in Minnesota after all.
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As Hurricane Ian continues strengthening and taking a course towards Tampa Bay, the Buccaneers have moved their practices down to Miami this week. Additionally, the NFL is closely monitoring the situation in case they have to make plans to move their game away from the city.
There are a couple options for locations if the game must be moved. That said, if they cannot play in Tampa, U.S. Bank Stadium has emerged as a lead candidate with the Vikings out of town for the week.
Note that Darlington states the Vikings play in New Orleans on Sunday, but he quicky corrected himself in the next tweet. Either way, it appears that U.S. Bank Stadium could play host Sunday Night Football if the NFL must move the game from Tampa Bay.
This would make sense for a couple reasons. Firstly, as Darlington states, keeping the game in Florida could take away resources that could be helping the relief effort for Hurricane Ian. Some have also asked why the game couldn’t just be moved to New Orleans given its closer proximity, and the fact that the Saints obviously will be out of town as well.
However, moving a Buccaneers home game to a division rival’s stadium could be a recipe for disaster. As someone who knows a number of Saints fans, they would absolutely show up to the Superdome to cheer against the Buccaneers. No option is going to be perfect but playing the game in the Vikings home stadium likely makes the most sense.
This is not an unprecedented event for the NFL to have to move games from one location for another. The most notable of these occurred with the New Orleans Saints when Hurricane Katrina hit.
Due to the devastation from the storm in 2005, the Superdome took massive damage along with the rest of the city. The Saints played their first home game of the season at Giants Stadium in New York, and then they split the rest of their games between LSU’s Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge and the AlamoDome in San Antonio.
The Saints also played their home opener last season against the Green Bay Packers in Jacksonville after Hurricane Ida struck the city.
This is another very scary situation for the folks down by the gulf coast this week as Hurricane Ian approaches. Hopefully, the storm doesn’t cause mass devastation, and the people of the area are able to stay safe.
Josh Frey is a Class of 2020 graduate of The College of Idaho with a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing as well as minors in History, Human Biology, and Journalism. When he’s not writing about the NFL, Josh can often be found training for a marathon, playing video games, or rooting for the Milwaukee Brewers and Bucks. For more of his takes, NFL and otherwise, check out his Twitter account: @Freyed_Chicken