Saturday night’s playoff game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the visiting Miami Dolphins will be played in dangerously cold conditions and the National Weather Service is asking fans to take precautions.
“Cover all extremities, including your head and face,” read the NWS warning.
Temperatures are expected to be below zero with a wind chill of -23 for Saturday’s 8 p.m. kickoff at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. And it’s only going to get colder from there, with wind gusts possibly reaching 30 miles per hour with a wind chill of -30, potentially making it one of the coldest environments for an NFL playoff game. in the history of the League.
Regardless, the NFL hasn’t considered changing the schedule FOX Sports.
The good news is that the snow showers Kansas City received this week will be largely wiped out by game time, but that’s little consolation for the Dolphins — a South Florida team that has never played in anything below 10 degrees (-12). .2 degrees Celsius) has played.
A plow driver patrols the parking lot of Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City amid a snowstorm
The Chiefs’ practice facility in Kansas City is covered in snow during a brutal week
A girl in a blanket runs into the deserted streets of Kansas City on Friday evening
One man wraps himself in a blanket as the streets of Kansas City are virtually deserted on Friday
And it certainly doesn’t help that the Dolphins’ Hawaiian-born quarterback Tua Tagovailoa played his college ball in sunny Alabama.
In fact, the Dolphins have dropped 10 straight games by an average of 17 points when playing in just under 40 degrees Fahrenheit, which seems almost tropical compared to what Miami will see Saturday night in Arrowhead.
“I see the dolphins in subzero temperatures, I see that as a disaster, an overnight disaster,” Fox Sports’ Skip Bayless predicted on Wednesday’s episode of Undisputed.
“A lot of people don’t want to get hit, or get hit in cold weather. It hurts a little bit more,” Dolphins linebacker and Cincinnati resident David Long told reporters this week. ‘And then you see what kind of players you have in your team. How much do you love it? How much do you want to achieve as a team at that point?’
Dolphins wideout Tyreek Hill plans to brave the cold in Kansas City for the Miami wild-card game
(From left) Travis Kelce and Patrick Mahomes rested in Week 18 against the LA Chargers
For Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill, a former Chiefs star, it’s all about mentality, which is why he plans to go sleeveless at Arrowhead.
“If you think it’s going to get cold, you’ll freeze your balls off,” Hill said. “But if you go into this game and don’t even think about that, everything will be fine.
“And being me, I played there and I understand the circumstances. It doesn’t even bother me at all. So I go out there with no sleeves and I tell the rest of the guys, ‘Hey, look man, it’s a mentality. If those boys see you wearing sleeves, they will obviously think you are soft.”
The Dolphins landed in Kansas City on Friday afternoon ahead of Saturday’s game.