March 26, 2026, 12:04 p.m. PT
The Los Angeles Rams will be making the long trek to Australia in September, where they’ll host the San Francisco 49ers in their season opener. The two NFC West rivals will begin the 2026 campaign at the historic Melbourne Cricket Ground, the first-ever regular-season game in Australia for the NFL.
Kevin Dotson and Kyren Williams recently visited Melbourne to get a lay of the land, finding out exactly where the Rams will be playing their Week 1 game. In addition to touring the city and general area, Dotson and Williams visited the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Dotson was blown away by the sheer size of the venue, saying it’s hard to imagine himself playing there.
“It was actually kind of hard to imagine myself playing there because the field was such a humongous amount of land,” Dotson said, via TheRams.com. “It felt like three acres of land. It was just mind blowing to see that like this piece of history for the country was such a… like the fact that I’m gonna be there is the thing that’s really gonna be the thing that just wows me. I can’t wait for our teammates to get here and be able to see it. … I feel like I can’t describe it to ’em in great enough detail to get them to feel what I felt when I walked in.”
NFL players are used to playing at football stadiums where the stands are almost right up against the field sidelines and end zones. But at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, it’s a vast area of land, with a surface area that’s significantly larger than a traditional American stadium.
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That’ll take some getting used to, but obviously, the field dimensions will be the same as usual. There’s just going to be a lot more space outside the white lines of the field.
