The NFL had their first snow days of the 2013 season this past week. The snow looked deepest in Philadelphia as the Eagles and Detroit Lions frolicked. I worried that a loose ball might be lost for a while. Pittsburgh had snow for the game between the Steelers and the warm-weather Miami Dolphins. The officials had more difficulties than the players in the snow of Baltimore. Washington D.C. presented the Redskins and Kansas City Chiefs with a mix of snow, ice, and rain. This snowy, wintry weather has been the talk of the league since the games. Some saw the fun of football in the snow. Most saw it as an acceptable way to play week 14 regular season games. None seem to think that it is an acceptable way to play a Super Bowl. This year's Super Bowl will be the first to be played outdoors at a potentially cold-weather site. MetLife Stadium in New Jersey will be the site of Super Bowl XLVIII. Many people are starting to fret over the weather at an event that is about two months away. There's about as much chance now for a snowy Super Bowl in February as there was last week. The only thing that's changed in the past week is that we saw a few games played in the snow. What happened last Sunday has nothing to do with what might happen in New Jersey in February. Everyone wants a clean playing field for a game as big as the Super Bowl but it's never a guarantee. We can pick all the warm weather cities that we want but that doesn't mean that the weather will cooperate. We've had rainy Super Bowls. We've had some cold Super Bowls. We've even lost power at a Super Bowl. There's always the potential for something to alter the dynamics of the game. One of the greatest things about football is the strategic aspect of the game. The team that best prepares and/or responds to a certain set of events is often the one that wins. Sometimes it's the weather.
Adverse weather conditions haven't ruined football games. One of the greatest, most iconic games in football history was played in possibly the most brutal conditions. The Ice Bowl. Dallas Cowboys-Green Bay Packers in Green Bay. Packers quarterback Bart Starr snuck in from one yard for Vince Lombardi's last NFL Championship. The weather impacted the game but didn't keep it from being great. A referee had a whistle stick to his lips. The same two teams played another terrific cold-weather Championship game the year before in Dallas. When the NFL started playing Championship games in 1933, all the teams played in the Midwest or the Northeast. Nearly every Championship game was played in a cold weather site. It wasn't until the AFL-NFL merger and the resulting Super Bowl that championships were decided on a hopefully bright and sunny day at a neutral site. No one complained during those four decades because football was supposed to be played in any kind of weather that presented itself. Teams just dealt with the conditions. Those that dealt with it the best were usually crowned champions. In the 1934 NFL Championship game the New York Giants went and found themselves some sneakers to gain better traction on the frozen field of the Polo Grounds. With sneakers on their feet they ran around and past the heavily favored but slipping Chicago Bears in the fourth quarter and won their second NFL title. Every football game is a challenge. Sometimes the weather is part of that challenge. It's part of the game and it always has been.
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