NFL officials on Monday “offered little concern about the playing surface” for Sunday’s Cowboys-Ravens game at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro and “expect the game to go as scheduled.” The league took over field operations on Monday, and NFL Field Director Nick Pappas looked at the field with his staff and said, “I don’t have any suspicions that we won’t be playing football on Sunday.” Pappas said that league officials “have been in Rio de Janeiro for weeks monitoring the conditions of the field, including Sunday when there was a soccer game.” Pappas said that the league is “working on putting down the lines and logos, installing goal posts and getting the mow pattern down in preparation for Sunday’s game” (DALLAS MORNING NEWS, 9/21).
The field at Maracanã Stadium “has been hit by unusually heavy rainfall over the past six weeks,” and Pappas said that the NFL “had shipped a tarp to Rio about a week ago to help protect the turf.” The 78,000-seat stadium regularly hosts soccer teams Flamengo and Fluminense, “averaging two games a week.” The “heavy schedule combined with relentless downpours has strained the natural grass surface.” The game will be the NFL’s third in Brazil, though the previous two were at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, where the turf was also criticized (AP, 9/21).