Vikings home playoff game vs. Seahawks could be historically cold
Many Minnesota Vikings fans look to the east, see the Green Bay Packers’ home-field advantage late in the year when it’s impossibly cold, and wonder why their team would want to play in a dome.
Coincidentally enough, what is likely the Vikings’ last home game outdoors for a long, long time might be historically cold.
In weather that will conjure up images of Bud Grant at old Metropolitan Stadium, the Vikings and Seattle Seahawks will kick off Sunday in temperatures that will make you glad you’re watching on your couch:
When the forecast calls for a high temperature of 1 degree above zero, you better bundle up.
Don’t get too crazy though, this will be no Ice Bowl. The 1967 NFL championship game between the Packers and Dallas Cowboys was minus-13 degrees. The coldest NFL game ever, in terms of wind chill, was the 1982 AFC championship game between the San Diego Chargers and Cincinnati Bengals, played in minus-59 wind chill. That was dubbed the Freezer Bowl.
But Sunday will still be pretty miserable. The coldest game in Seahawks history, according to Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times, was a 1992 game at Denver that was 13 degrees. The Seahawks have played only 20 games in freezing temperatures and are 6-14 in them.
It will even be cold for the Vikings. If the temperature hasn’t risen above zero degrees for the 12:05 p.m. Central time kickoff, it will be just the second game in Vikings history that is played in sub-zero temperatures. The other one was Dec. 3, 1972, when it was minus-2 for a game against the Chicago Bears, according to ESPN.com.
While it will be just as miserable for the Vikings — you think Texas-born and raised Adrian Peterson or Teddy Bridgewater from Miami will be enjoying it? — they can rally around this being a home-field edge.
“I actually love it; we get to use it to our advantage,” Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said last month, according to ESPN.com. “You get teams that aren’t used to playing in the cold weather games and like I said, you get to use it to your advantage. It’s all a mental thing. I’m a big fan of it, actually.”
The Vikings knew they might be playing a game or two like this when they had to use the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium for two seasons. The Metrodome was closed down, and the Vikings will move into a new dome next season. Unless the No. 3 seed Vikings advance to the NFC championship game and meet Washington or Green Bay there, this will be the last Vikings home game before the new dome opens.
And if this is the last Vikings outdoor home game for a long time, it will be memorable for anyone whose brain doesn’t freeze watching it.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab
