With Wild Card weekend starting in January, weather is always a factor during the NFL playoffs. 2024 will be no different, as we saw some serious inclement conditions during the Week 18 contests around the league, and there are some games that will be affected by mother nature this weekend as well.
NFL: Chiefs vs. Dolphins Could See Sub-Zero Temperatures
The wind chill in Kansas City Saturday night is now expected to drop to -21 degrees, the National Weather Service says.
During the Dolphins-Chiefs game it won’t be as bad though!
The second half wind chill should only be -14 with a real temp of 4 degrees.
— Andy Slater (@AndySlater) January 10, 2024
Perhaps none more than the matchup in Kansas City between the Chiefs and Dolphins, though.
According to the forecast for the weekend, Saturday and Sunday have a chance to break record-low temperatures in Western Missouri. The skies will be clear in between two storms, but the high temp for Saturday, when the two teams square off, is a balmy 9 degrees Fahrenheit. The low is expected to get down to -6, with a game-time temperature somewhere around 2 degrees. The wind chill is expected to feel like -14.
While it likely won’t be near the top of the list of coldest games in NFL history, it will probably place somewhere in the top ten. The infamous “Ice Bowl” between the Cowboys and Packers in 1967 is the coldest on record, when temperatures reached -13 and the wind chill was an extreme -48. But that didn’t hold a candle to the wind chill in Cincinnati in 1982 when that number reached -59 in a game between the Bengals and Chargers, which was 50 degrees lower than the actual temperature.
The coldest contest in recent memory was the “Blair Walsh Game” in 2016. In -6 degree temperatures and a -25 windchill, the Vikings kicker missed a 27-yard chip shot to take the lead with 20 seconds remaining, and Minnesota had their season ended by the Seahawks. There hasn’t been a colder NFL game since.
Both Teams Will Have To Adjust To The Elements
“Kansas City is going to look really good and the Dolphins are going to look really cold”
—@getnickwright is feeling confident in his Chiefs pic.twitter.com/BDPV9QVF8a
— The Volume (@TheVolumeSports) January 10, 2024
The general consensus is that the Dolphins will be the team that needs to make adjustments. There is no such thing as sub-zero temperatures in Miami, and they are more used to baking in the sun than freezing in the wind. But the truth is that cold weather affects both teams equally, and no one is comfortable in below-freezing temperatures no matter where they play football.
The Dolphins are banged up and will enter the game with a thinned out defensive unit, which would typically be a massive issue playing against Patrick Mahomes. But the Chiefs haven’t been the dominant force that we’ve grown accustomed to this season, and could be vulnerable on both sides of the ball against a team coming off of a disappointing end to the regular season.
The Chiefs are the current favorites, currently coming in with a designation of -4.5.
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