The Dallas Cowboys and Baltimore Ravens are headed to Rio de Janeiro for a Week 3 NFL game that will make Maracanã the site of its first-ever NFL matchup on Sept. 27. But the pitch is already under scrutiny, with local players and observers warning that the field may not be ready in time.
That matters now because the Cowboys have already begun their own prep for Brazil. Brian Schottenheimer said the team sent a group in late March to look around the facility, and he said the organization and its operations staff have done a great job of setting up the trip. The team’s plan includes cargo ships and a flight to Brazil on Thursday night, part of the intense logistics around a game that is still weeks away but suddenly looks more complicated.
The criticism is coming from inside the local game, not just from outsiders watching from afar. Agustín Rossi of Flamengo said the field was there for everyone to see and described the playing surface in harsh terms, while Giorgian De Arrascaeta said the field keeps getting worse. He added that it is getting harder to control the ball and said a team with Flamengo’s quality should not be playing on a surface like this. In July, Brazilian journalist Felipe Laurence wrote that the Maracanã field did not look to be in great shape with less than two months to go until the NFL game there.
Maracanã executives have pointed to heavy rain as a major reason for the conditions, but that explanation only raises the stakes for what can realistically be done before kickoff. One soccer game is scheduled for Sept. 20, leaving less than a week between that match and the Cowboys-Ravens game for any work on the surface. That is a tight window for a field that has already drawn complaints, especially if the NFL wants to avoid a repeat of the 2024 game in Sao Paulo, when the pitch at Arena Corinthians was described as atrocious and the league later invested $1 million on it.
The next test is not the NFL game itself but the week before it. If the field is still a problem after the Sept. 20 soccer match, the Cowboys and Ravens may arrive for a showcase event in Brazil only to find that the most watched part of the night is the grass under their feet.
