Heaters, layers, pipes, mind games: How Chiefs and Dolphins will attack the cold
The NFL issued a reminder this week about the coldest games in league history.
The Ice Bowl in Green Bay for the 1967 NFL Championship between the Packers and Dallas Cowboys kicked off with the thermometer reading minus-13.
As for wind chill, fans braved an NFL-record minus-59 degrees in Cincinnati when the Bengals defeated the San Diego Chargers for the AFC Championship in January 1982.
Should remembering those games warm the hearts of those going to GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium for Saturday night’s Wild Card playoff game between the Chiefs and Miami Dolphins?
The bitter forecast calls for the high temperature at the Truman Sports Complex on Saturday — as of Wednesday afternoon — to reach 11 degrees, with the anticipated low a numbing minus-2. Winds could blow up to 25 mph. The game kicks off at 7 p.m., and the temperature is expected to drop throughout the game.
Chiefs fans can take a salt- and sand-covered path down memory lane and recall shivering moments of their own, like the 2016 regular-season game against the Tennessee Titans: 1 degree at kickoff. Or the 11-degree kickoff for the Indianapolis Colts playoff game after the 1995 season.
The 1983 season finished against the Denver Broncos with 0 degrees at kickoff and a wind chill of minus-30. That’s considered the coldest Chiefs home game.
Saturday could top the list, and here’s the crazy thing: The forecast calls for even colder days on Sunday and Monday, the other NFL playoff days this weekend. The Chiefs-Dolphins could be playing on the “warmest” day of the weekend.
At practice on Wednesday, in 37-degree weather, most players wore sleeves under their jerseys. But not all. Chiefs linebacker Leo Chenal, a Wisconsin native, went sleeveless.
“This week, just finally got the snow, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘It feels like home,’“ said Chenal. “So we’re looking forward to it, kind of playing in our weather. Whatever weather it is, we’re ready. But personally, I’m looking forward to it.”
Safety Justin Reid said layering is the way to go on game day.
“I’m going to layer up,” he said. “I’m not trying to win the swag competition on having my arms out. I’m wearing layers. I’ll be prepared for the cold.”
The coldest game in Dolphins history? That also came in Kansas City. In 2008, it was 10 degrees at kickoff and the playoff-bound Dolphins went on to beat the last-place Chiefs 38-31.
Current Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, a Hawaii native, is 1-4 in games where the temperature was 50 degrees or colder at kickoff. But he and the rest of the Dolphins’ offense were solid in a late-season loss at Buffalo in 2022. The wind chill that day was 22 degrees at kickoff.
Miami coach MIke McDaniel said “30 or 40 percent of the team hadn’t ever played under 50 (degrees) and it was uncharted territory. So we spent a good amount of time talking through that. (Cold weather) can be an excuse or something that galvanizes a team, because you’re going through it together.”
The air will be cold Saturday, but the field won’t be frozen. There’s a heating system underneath, in the form of thousands of feet of warm pipe below the surface of the field. The intricate system brings the field temperature to 50 degrees.
Also, heated benches will be available along both sidelines, although Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce expressed displeasure with the seats in a discussion with his brother, Jason, during the weekly New Heights podcast.
“Benches are hot,” Kelce said. “It’s got to be (extremely) cold ... for me to sit on the heater, man.”
Like Kelce, Chenal is anti-heater.
“I don’t like to go by the heater — the blasting heater — because it gets in my head like, ‘Oh, I’m nice and safe and warm,’” Chenal said. “Then when I leave it, I’m like, ‘Oh, crap.’ So I like to have that mental deal going on, like, ‘Stay away from me. I’m fine.’”
This story was originally published January 11, 2024 at 5:30 AM.