It’s wintertime in Cleveland.

The Tennessee Titans (1-11) visit the Cleveland Browns (3-9) in the freezing, sleeting, driving-wind conditions of Huntington Bank Field on Dec. 7 (noon CT, FOX). The projected forecast for Sunday afternoon, per The Weather Channel, includes temperatures in the low to mid 30s with a 22% chance of precipitation and 10-15 mph winds. AccuWeather predicts a “real feel” temperature of 23 degrees.

Not exactly the conditions for playing a pass-first, vertical-style offense like Titans quarterback Cam Ward prefers.

“It’s something you have to always take into consideration,” Titans interim coach Mike McCoy said Dec. 3. “Whether it’s a field position game, what direction are you heading, what are you trying to do offensively, when do you throw the ball more, when are you running it more depending on where the wind is and how it goes, how is the flow of the game going? So there’s a number of things that definitely factor into the decision making. It’s a field position game at times.”

A former quarterback himself, McCoy reminisced about the experience about playing in Saskatchewan for the CFL’s Roughriders. In pregame warmups he tossed a ball directly above his head and watched it sail backwards in the wind. Shocked, he ambled toward his offensive coordinator and suggested the team probably shouldn’t throw that direction very often.

The end zones at Huntington Bank Field are aligned east to west, and the wind is projected to whirl in a west-northwest direction. If that’s the case, each team will spend a good half of the game with the wind essentially at its back and another half throwing and kicking into the wind.

Circumstances like those lead to dramatically divergent strategies depending on direction, especially on special teams. Throw the chance of snow into the equation and everything else gets magnified. Players won’t just be cold; it’ll be harder to run, cut, catch and plant.

And for a quarterback like Ward, who grew up in Texas and spent a good chunk of his college years in San Antonio and Miami before moving to Nashville, a winter game in Cleveland will be an interesting first test and challenge as he continues his pro journey.

Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at  nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X @nicksuss. Subscribe to the Talkin’ Titans newsletter for updates sent directly to your inbox.