By Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff
Many say that having the Super Bowl in New Jersey, where the temperature is expected to be in the low 20s, is stupid because players will be unable to perform at the level that got them there in the first place.
But why should the biggest game of the football season be played differently than any other game? Plenty of regular season games take place in grueling weather, yet no one bats an eye because football is supposed to be played in all weather, no matter what.
Even in the playoffs, where the top teams in the NFL battle for supremacy, nobody makes that much of a note on whether or not a game should or should not be played in a cold weathered stadium. For example, in the Divisional Round, the Packers hosted the 49ers in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where the wind chill was -14 degrees. No one could argue that this game was not incredibly entertaining though; the 49ers won on a last second field goal that gave them the win, 23-20.
For someone to say that because the Super Bowl is going to be in a cold weather stadium it will not be of the usual entertainment is not true. If anything, it might be more entertaining.
What other type of situation could a single score carry so much weight? Generally, in cold weather games, there is less scoring, giving each and every field goal and touchdown more meaning. Any time a fan’s team scores a touchdown in this type of weather, he or she can think that it could be the factor that puts the game away.
Also, let me remind you of the Patriots’ week 12 win against the Broncos, where extreme weather conditions heavily influenced the game. While fans didn’t see Peyton Manning pick apart the injured Patriots’ defense with his arm, they were able to see the running back, Knowshon Moreno, have one of his finest days of his career.
Fans also saw strategies completely changed during the course of the game for both teams because they had to improvise their gameplans if they wanted to compete and win in extreme conditions. Improvisation from both coaches shed a new light on just how intelligent coaches have to be in this league; whereas, often during times in games with comfortable temperatures, the ability to be flexible isn’t a factor. During the game, Belichick’s end-of-third-quarter timeout (to make sure he had the wind going in the right direction to successfully kick a usually makeable field goal) proved to be a huge part of the final score of the game. The Patriots won this extreme weather game 34-31, after trailing by 24 points. Tell me that game was not entertaining.
Not only was it entertaining, but it was entertaining because of the poor weather. The Super Bowl will actually end up being more entertaining because of the cold weather, not less. When it matters most, players will inevitably find it within themselves to perform at the level they are capable of, if not higher. They are there to prove their critics wrong, willing to do anything they can think of to help weather the inevitable cold temperatures that will arise during this Super Bowl.
So what if we don’t see Peyton Manning square off against Richard Sherman, the self proclaimed “best corner in the league”, every single play? They are not the sole reason their teams have made it this far. The frigid temperature will help the viewer realize the importance of the NFL’s hardest workers, the Lineman, as well as the importance of being able to have a productive ground-and-pound offensive attack, as it gets harder to throw accurately down the field as the temperature gets closer and closer to zero.
If anything, the cold weather will give the millions of viewers a blast from the past, a time when the NFL was run by running backs, not quarterbacks. When some of the toughest, most entertaining teams of all time ran the league. That is worth sweating out one cold weather Super Bowl.
