When the Houston Texans and Oakland Raiders take the field at Mexico City's sold-out Estadio Azteca on Monday night, Brock Osweiler, Derek Carr and their teammates will be treated to the standard NFL amenities of a recently refurbished stadium. But when the Philadelphia Eagles and New Orleans Saints contested the first NFL game in Mexico on Aug. 5, 1978, the conditions were hardly befitting of professional American football.
"When we went there, they weren't prepared," Ron Jaworski, the Eagles' starting quarterback that season, says of that preseason matchup 38 years ago.