The 2024 NFL season will get off to a historic start with a game taking place in South America for the first time. On Friday, Sep. 6, the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers will face off in Brazil.
And while this is great news for the american football fans in this region, some players don’t look happy with the league’s decision. Eagles cornerback Darius Slay, for instance, has publicly admitted he doesn’t want to play in Sao Paulo.
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“I do not want to go to Brazil. You want to know why? I’m going to tell you why,” Slay said on his Big Play Slay podcast. “They already told us not to leave the hotel. They told us we can’t do too much going on, because the crime rate is crazy. I’m like ‘NFL, why would you want to send us somewhere with a crime rate this high?'”
“I told my family do not come down there because I’m not going to be nowhere to be found,” Slay added.
He echoed the sentiment of wide receiver A.J. Brown, who said he plans to spend much of his time in Brazil in the hotel.
There’s clearly a lot of prejudice by some of these players, who don’t know much about the place they’re going to visit. Months ago, Packers running back Josh Jacobs suggested they were told not to wear green because of “gangs”, when the only reason that color is not beloved in that area is because Palmeiras are the lifelong rivals of Corinthians, whose stadium will host this NFL game.
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni, however, is not paying attention to his players’ complaints.
“We’re going there to play and win a football game. That’s our goal. That’s our only goal as we go down there,” Sirianni said on Sunday. “And so, it’s just getting everybody in the right mindset of what you need to be when you go down there. You can control the things that you can control. Like, we’re going to Brazil to play. That’s what it is. We’re excited about that.”
