Vikings Suddenly Have a New Threat on Monday Night
Soldier Field, the site of the Minnesota Vikings’ first regular season game in five days, recently held a bonanza of concerts.
The Vikings have a new danger to deal with on Monday Night Football, and it’s not the Bears — the element, so to speak, could factor in.
The Chicago Bears’ field will now be re-sodded this week to prepare for Monday Night Football, when Ben Johnson’s team hosts Minnesota.
Of course, that raised questions about the playing surface in football speak.
Soldier Field to Be Re-Sodded ahead of Bears-Vikings
The playing surface at Soldier Field is usually suspect anyway.
Playing Surface at Soldier Field Turns Heads
SI.com‘s Joe Nelson wrote this week, “Crews will spend this week transforming Soldier Field by laying sod ahead of the Sept. 8 Bears-Vikings opener. How will field conditions be come Monday night?”
“Last year, before the Bears’ preseason opener against the Bengals, which came the week after Soldier Field hosted back-to-back Metallica concerts, the field conditions weren’t great.”
Approximately 250,000 concertgoers visited the venue in the last week, so the traffic was supersized. Chicago and Minnesota will now merely hope that the playing surface is good to go by Monday Night Football.
Always a Question Mark Anyway
This is nothing new regarding the surface at Soldier Field. The grass is notorious for poor and unusual conditions, and in fact, it’s a storyline annually when Minnesota travels to the venue.
Still, it’s rare for five concerts to precede Minnesota’s travels, so hoping for the best is the new outlook.
It’s also worth noting that Minnesota’s best player, Justin Jefferson, is recovering from a hamstring tweak that kept him out of training camp and the preseason. An unreliable field is probably the worst possible assignment for a suspect hamstring.
Welcome to the Rivalry for J.J. McCarthy
The J.J. McCarthy era begins Monday night, and oddly, McCarthy grew up as a Bears fan. He’ll know firsthand all about the playing surface. Whether that’s a perk is to be determined.
Minnesota spent a 1st-Round pick on McCarthy a year and a half ago. His rookie season never got off the ground, though, as McCarthy tore his meniscus in the preseason. Sam Darnold took over the QB1 job and promptly led the purple team to a 14-3 record.
Now, it’s McCarthy’s turn — at a stadium he knows intimately, against a team he once loved, and on a playing surface that was used for concerts out the wazoo last weekend. Storylines galore.
Get Your Best Cleats
Minnesota head coach Kevin O’Connell told KFAN about the field situation this week: “This is professional football so our anticipation is the surface is going to be good enough to play on. But I would say this, at some point, the guys in purple and white aren’t going to be the only ones playing on the surface so we’ve gotta do our best to establish, through a lot of different people, once we’ve arrived, once we’ve had a chance to step foot, gotta have our players prepared to play on whatever the surface is.”
“And truly, Monday Night Football, NFC North, if they want to clear out some space in the parking lot, we can play out there, too. At this point, I would say that is not incredibly high on my priority list.”
O’Connell has visited Soldier Field thrice as the club’s skipper, so field concerns are familiar.
“We’ve seen at another location here in the NFC North that happens to have grass and a unique climate, we’ve seen that surface play a major role before. We want to make sure that we’re doing our part to prepare our players. It’s something I will talk about with the guys. We’ll have the equipment available and we’ll go play football,” O’Connell concluded.
More on the Field and Transformation
WGN’s Courtney Spinelli added more context to the Soldier Field lineup last Friday: “This weekend marks a major milestone for Soldier Field as it plays host to five nights of concerts back-to-back. The stretch of shows kicked off Thursday as Oasis took the stage for a sold-out performance during the band’s first U.S. show in 17 years.”
“Once the house lights turned on, crews got back to work immediately, breaking down and getting ready for the My Chemical Romance: The Black Parade tour to take over the stadium Friday. That wrapped around 3 a.m. and Wilkerson, a stagehand with Local 2 Chicago, said about 20 trucks filled with equipment rolled in several hours later with the My Chemical Romance production.”
All in all, Soldier Field is apparently rocking.
Spinelli added, “From lighting to sound, wardrobe, band gear, and everything that comes with a band production, the team worked through the afternoon hours to have everything ready to go for Friday night. This week, the only thing that will stay the same from night-to-night is the main stage build, something all tours agreed on to help with the process of flipping the field.”
“Soldier Field General Manager Tim LeFevour has been in the business for about 45 years and said this weekend is one for the books.”
Chicago is a 1.5-point underdog on their home surface against Minnesota.
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