Mother nature is known to wreak havoc during the NFL season, but the Cardinals and Bears were in for a surprise on Sunday at State Farm Stadium.
The teams got hailed on during the second quarter of the NFC clash in Glendale, Arizona, which forced the stadium roof to be closed midgame.
The afternoon matchup began with the roof open as the sun had been out, however, a surprise storm rolled through the area, bringing rain and hail that started falling in the middle of the game.
The CBS broadcast made plenty of mention of the weather as the storm clouds opened up and the bizarre situation led to the roof being closed, which the broadcast indicated would take 10 minutes to complete.
“It’s not just rain fellas, we’ve got hail coming down. This is a really odd sensation because of the way of the design,” Evan Washburn said during the broadcast. “It’s really only the field that’s being impacted, but you can see tiny white pellets. That’s hail coming down here in Glendale.”
The process to close the roof finally wrapped up late in the second quarter.
The game became the first NFL game ever to have a stadium’s retractable roof closed in the middle of a contest, according to footballzebras.com.
The outlet also indicated that for a stadium to close its roof in the middle of an NFL game, the decision can only be made by the ref in coordination with football operations.
Oddly, another stadium in Arizona with a retractable roof has had an issue.
Earlier this year, the Diamondbacks had to call off a spring training game at Chase Field because of rain inside the stadium.
Chase Field does have a retractable roof, but because of a cable issue, they are unable to close the roof with fans inside the stadium, 12News reported.