Updated Jan. 28, 2026, 11:41 a.m. MT<\/p>\n
The Denver Broncos<\/a> have begun the initial process of planning a new stadium<\/a> with the goal of having it completed in time for the 2031 NFL season. The initial design concepts include a retractable roof, which would allow Denver to host Super Bowls<\/a> without building a permanently-domed stadium.<\/p>\n So, had the stadium been ready for last week’s AFC Championship game against the New England Patriots<\/a>, would the Broncos<\/a> have left it open? During his end-of-season press conference on Wednesday, team owner and CEO Greg Penner noted that the league has regulations for postseason games, and a retractable roof likely would have been closed.<\/p>\n “The NFL does have guidelines, or rules … so we’d obviously comply with that,” Penner said. “In this case, we would have likely closed it ahead of time given both the temperature and the potential precipitation.”<\/p>\n The kickoff temperature for the AFC title game was 26 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill of 16 degrees. A snowstorm hit in the second half<\/a> and clearly impacted the game<\/a>, but Penner didn’t say it ultimately decided the game’s outcome (Denver lost 10-7<\/a>).<\/p>\n “Who knows if that would have had any outcome on the game either way,” Penner said. “This would have been more around just what was going to be good for the fans. So it was pretty rough.”<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n Fans who love football played in the elements still have five more seasons to enjoy the Broncos playing at Empower Field at Mile High, and there may be future playoff games played in the snow before the new stadium is ready. Once that new stadium is completed, though, it sounds like the roof will be closed for postseason games played in cold, inclement weather.<\/p>\n Social: Follow\u00a0Broncos Wire<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Twitter\/X<\/a>!\u00a0Did you know:\u00a0These 25 celebrities are Broncos fans<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated Jan. 28, 2026, 11:41 a.m. MT The Denver Broncos have begun the initial process of planning a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[95878,232,791,231,258,2426,7,6,95879,95880,95882,95887,96115,95886,95893,96085,96082,95896,95888,95895,95897,95883,95894,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-712170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-broncos","10":"tag-co","11":"tag-denver","12":"tag-denver-broncos","13":"tag-denverbroncos","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-sstssportsnflbroncos","17":"tag-sstsnbroncos","18":"tag-tagamerican-football","19":"tag-tagamerican-football-conference","20":"tag-tagdenver","21":"tag-tagdenver-broncos","22":"tag-tagfacebook","23":"tag-taglive-sporting-events","24":"tag-taglocal-affiliate-arts-entertainment","25":"tag-tagnational-sports","26":"tag-tagnfl","27":"tag-tagnfl-hub","28":"tag-tagoverall-negative","29":"tag-tagsports-news","30":"tag-tagtwitter","31":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115974368517583242","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712170","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=712170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}