Another Ice Bowl may be on tap this weekend.
Saturday’s wild card matchup between the Chiefs and Dolphins in Kansas City is going to be historically cold, where temperatures could dip as low as -8, with the windchill making it feel as low as -35 this weekend.
That’s long-johns-under-your-jacket-under-your-parka weather right there.
The game would be in contention with the famed Ice Bowl, the 1967 NHL Championship game between the Packers and Cowboys at Lambeau Field, which hit -13 degrees with a -48 windchill.
The National Weather Service has declared the weather to be “dangerously cold,” with frostbite and hypothermia legitimate concerns.
Fans hoping to catch the action without also catching a chill will have to subscribe to Peacock (outside of Kansas City and Miami) in order to watch what could be the coldest game in Arrowhead Stadium history.
With Miami’s poor history in cold weather, it could turn into a nightmare scenario for Miami, which blew a chance to win the AFC East — and host a wild-card game (the low will be 69 degrees in Miami on Saturday) — with season-ending loss to the Bills.
Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is 0-4 in games where the temp is 45 degrees or lower, and his coach knows he and his teammates will have to figure it out this weekend.
“If we’re playing in any playoff game that isn’t at home,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said earlier this week, “it probably will be cold. It will be the same for both teams. For us and for the individuals in the locker room, I know they will not use that as an excuse.”
The Chiefs, meanwhile, have excelled in the cold at home, losing once in the last 10 times the temps have fallen below 40 at Arrowhead — including a 4-0 mark in the playoffs.
That includes the 2019 AFC Championship game in which Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs bounced the Titans, 35-24, in the second-coldest game at their home stadium — two weeks before breaking a 50-year Super Bowl title drought.
Travis Kelce and the Chiefs may not be used to playing in this kind of cold. Getty ImagesThey won’t be the only ones trying to keep warm this weekend, with a winter storm watch placed on Western New York — potentially impacting the Bills-Steelers matchup set to take place in Orchard Park on Sunday.
The area could see as much as seven inches of snow over the weekend and winds up to 44 MPH with the infamous lake effect in play.
