With player safety — and boycotts — on the line, NFL moves marquee Chiefs-Rams game from Mexico City to L.A.

Sloppy turf at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City has forced the NFL to move what could be the game of the year between the Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs back to California.

It couldn’t have been an easy decision for the league to abandon a piece of one of its marquee events, the International Series, but it was the right one. With the Rams and Chiefs both at 9-1, bound for the playoffs and harboring legitimate Super Bowl aspirations, the risk of injury was too great to keep the game in Mexico City, on a field that had been ravaged by a heavy schedule of soccer games and concerts, including a recent concert a massive show by pop star Shakira last month.

It’s a decision that likely would not have been reached without significant push back from players and the NFL Players Association. On Tuesday afternoon, while officials from the league and both teams met in Mexico City to inspect the field, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that players on both teams could refuse to play if the game proceeded as scheduled at Azteca, no matter what sort of emergency work was done to repair the damaged turf.

“The decision to move the Chiefs-Rams game to LA was based in consultation with the NFLPA and following a meeting and field inspection this afternoon by NFL and club field experts as well as local and independent outside experts,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in a statement posted on his Twitter account.

Hey @ProFootballDoc this is the Aztec Stadium today. What are the risk for Rams/Chiefs players to play over there in a week? pic.twitter.com/r6ILWkaG6j

— Ulises Harada está modo Temporada NFL 2022 (@ulisesharada) November 10, 2018

The risk of a player boycott or serious injury to a player on one of the league’s best teams ultimately outweighed the logistical and public relations hassle that will come with relocating the game. The league was in its third year of an annual series of games at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City as it tries to expand its reach into the Mexican market. The league also annually hosts three games each season in London and is exploring the possibility of playing a regular-season game in China in the not-too-distant future.

The first two Mexico City games, in 2016 and 2017, came with some controversy — Mexican fans loudly chanted homophobic slurs that are common at soccer matches, a laser light-beam flashed in the face of Texans’ quarterback Brock Osweiler in 2016, (unfounded) concerns emerged about the stadium’s integrity when pictures of cracks in the stadium surfaced days before the 2017 game between the Patriots and Raiders – but the shoddy playing surface was an entirely different concern, one that was not easily remedied.

But it is one that should have been expected, and the league will have to answer to questions of why, just six days before one of its premier events, it was forced to move the game. Pictures of the field at Azteca Stadium after the Shakira concert on Oct. 11 showed the hybrid grass-turf field was a mess, and it deteriorated in the following weeks. The last event held at the stadium was the LigaMX game between Lobos BUAP and Cruz Azul on Saturday.

“We have worked extensively with our partners at Estadio Azteca for months in preparation for this game,” said NFL Executive Vice President of International Mark Waller. “Until very recently, we had no major concerns. But, the combination of a difficult rainy season and a heavy multi-event calendar of events at the stadium, have resulted in significant damage to the field that presents unnecessary risks to player safety and makes it unsuitable to host an NFL game. As a result, we have determined that moving the game is the right decision, and one that we needed to announce now in order to allow our teams and fans to make alternate arrangements.”

Moving the game back to Los Angeles was not only the easiest solution, but the only one. The Rams were required by league rules to hold the Nov. 19 date open at their home stadium as a backup plan. And while there will be some logistical challenges with ticket distribution and short-notice game-day operations at the Coliseum, it was the most logical of all the contingency plans. Reimbursement information for fans will be announced in the coming days.

The Rams and Chiefs both have their bye week scheduled for Week 12, so the game could have been postponed a week, but that would have led to complications with the broadcast. ESPN would likely have been loath to surrender what should be one of the highest-rated games of the year, and it’s unclear if the network could have retained the rights to the game the following week. ESPN will broadcast the Titans at Texans Monday Night game in Week 12.

For the Chiefs, the relocation will change little about their preparations, and will shorten their travel day on Sunday. The Rams, however, had moved their game-week preparations to Colorado Springs to acclimate to the Mexico City altitude.

The team, which arrived in Colorado Springs on Monday evening, will remain there for the week, and hold its practices at the Air Force Academy as previously scheduled.

Back home in Los Angeles, team employees who stayed behind are working on the logistics for the new home game. Those plans include distributing thousands of tickets to first responders and others affected by the wildfires that have devastated areas near the team’s training facility north of Los Angeles. About 100 team employees, including players, coaches and other staff, were forced to evacuate their homes in the Conejo Valley and Malibu area last Thursday night and Friday, and some were unable to return to their homes before the team left for Colorado.

(Photo by Mauricio Salas/Jam Media/Getty Images)