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Now, the actual gameplay itself? That was terrible. Both teams had already struggled to move the ball against far superior defenses. Throw in the elements that began to impact things in the third quarter, and this wasn\u2019t even a fair fight. Watching some of the finest athletes in the world picking their way delicately through the snow like they were trying to avoid stepping on dandelions, or rumbling on the ground like five-year-olds who had just wrecked off a sled \u2026 well, that\u2019s not exactly aesthetically pleasing football. Certainly not ideal conditions for the second-most-important game of the year.<\/p>\n
Snow games aren\u2019t fair, the critics protest. You shouldn\u2019t work an entire season, August to January, only to see all your planning, all your effort, all your strategy and scheming blown away in 12 minutes of snowy hell.<\/p>\n
You know what? That\u2019s right! It shouldn\u2019t go down that way! In a perfect world, every football game would be the best 11 on the best 11, everyone healthy, everyone on the field in perfect climate, everyone with the maximum opportunity to perform at the absolute pinnacle of their ability.<\/p>\n
![\"DENVER,](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ec2c9d73-1843-41ee-ad1c-59ae8dd63133.jpeg\"\/)
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Snow began to fall at Empower Field at Mile High prior to the second half, which covered the entire field \u2014 including the yardline markers. (Photo by Hyoung Chang\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n
(Hyoung Chang via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
But the underlying fundamental principle of sports is the ability to compete when conditions aren\u2019t ideal. It\u2019s the old Mike Tyson chestnut \u2014 \u201cEverybody has a plan until they get punched in the face\u201d \u2014 played out in 12-degree temperatures. If sports are a reflection of life, well, what\u2019s more life-like than months of planning for a big moment abruptly undone by terrible weather? Sure, it\u2019d be wonderful if every family vacation or child\u2019s birthday party went off under pristine skies, but we know that so often doesn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n
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(Aside: Do not feel bad for anybody who gambled on this game and lost money because of the snow. That\u2019s why it\u2019s called gambling, not investing. Gamblers hope for perfect conditions; sports books know that perfection is unattainable and profit off that knowledge.)<\/p>\n
Another fundamental element of sports: It\u2019s not just how you act, it\u2019s how you react. When the unthinkable or the unexpected becomes your new reality \u2014 when that thunderstorm starts dumping buckets on your meticulously orchestrated outdoor wedding, say \u2014 what do you do then? Do you curse the heavens, or do you adapt?<\/p>\n
The anticipate-and-adapt element is a key reason why Sean Payton is drawing so much criticism for opting to go for it on fourth down midway through the second quarter<\/a>. The wisdom of going for a crucial fourth down with an inexperienced quarterback aside, Payton knew, or should have known, that rough weather was on the way. NASCAR crew chiefs scheme this way all the time, getting their drivers up front on the chance that weather will call the race early. There was no chance the NFL was going to call this game on account of snow, but a two-possession lead with snow on the way is a nice hand to hold.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a larger point to be made here about the real versus the ideal, and the way that we are collectively doing our very best to eliminate all random chance from these games. We engineer our newest stadiums to replicate the natural world with a perfect scientifically engineered grass-like product and perfect mechanically generated air temperature, yes. But that\u2019s not what makes these games worth watching. If all we are after is perfection, we\u2019d sim the season with AI. The unpredictable element \u2014 whether it\u2019s a sudden snow or, say, a player nearly taunting his team out of the playoffs<\/a> \u2014 is why we come back to sports, season after season.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The bad news for snow football fans, though, is that the league is slowly, collectively filtering the random weather element out of the game. This isn\u2019t surprising; when you drop $5 billion on a new stadium, you don\u2019t want a pesky element like weather determining whether it\u2019s comfortable.<\/p>\n There are currently 21 NFL teams that play in open-air stadiums, and excluding the obvious never-snow ones \u2014 Tampa Bay and Miami \u2014 at least half a dozen of the still-remaining open-air teams are planning some form of roof or canopy overhead in the years to come. Planned or in-progress stadiums and renovations in Nashville, Jacksonville, Cleveland, Chicago, Kansas City and Washington, D.C. would be domed or covered.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The most recent new stadium built open to the air is, coincidentally enough, Levi\u2019s Stadium in Santa Clara, which opened in 2014 and has the benefit of being in, well, California. Of all the new stadiums on the way, only Buffalo\u2019s stadium will be open to the air \u2026 and the irony in that, given Buffalo\u2019s tendency for epic snow, is perfect. There\u2019s still a slight hope for generational snow games in the seasons to come.<\/p>\n Now, if Buffalo can just manage to claim some more home playoff games \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are two kinds of football fans in this world: Those who watched Sunday\u2019s AFC championship and loved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[346,833,7,5711,20845,102795,3872,6,84,102793,102794],"class_list":{"0":"post-707639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-playoffs","8":"tag-chiefs","9":"tag-drake-maye","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-football-fans","12":"tag-football-game","13":"tag-hyoung-chang","14":"tag-jarrett-stidham","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-nfl-playoffs","17":"tag-snow-games","18":"tag-snowy-mountain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115964263236996596","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}