Jason Bell: Chiefs vs Rams venue switch will boost LA community amid California wildfires

Former American football star Jason Bell says the NFL’s decision to move tonight’s game between the Los Angeles Rams and Kansas City Chiefs back to California will give a boost to a community devastated by wildfires.

The Monday Night Football clash, originally scheduled as a Rams home fixture, had been set to take place in Mexico as part of the NFL’s International Series, which also featured three games in London.

However, the league announced over the weekend that the playing surface at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium was not fit to host an NFL game and decided to move the meeting of two potential Super Bowl contenders back to the Rams’ Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Bell, a former NFL cornerback who is now a regular pundit on the BBC’s NFL Show, says the surprise return to California will provide a welcome to distraction at a time when the state is battling against wildfires that have already killed more than 70 people.

“You know it really is [a boost],” Bell told Standard Sport. “With what's happening in L.A. with the fires, I think the community will be able to come together at that game and it will give them relief from all that stress.

“That will make them very loud, it'll make them very passionate.”

Bell believes the team will also benefit from a renewed togetherness, having spent the week in Colorado on a training camp that had been designed to prepare them for the altitude of Mexico City.

“They'll have the camaraderie of being together all week which most NFL team don't have,” Bell said.

“Usually you go home after practice and you're with your families but now that these guys have been together, they'll have tighter bond and that should help them in this game.”