NFL Football is Meant to Be Played Outdoors, in the Snow

The Denver Broncos - New England Patriots AFC Championship, which went from clear and sunny to blizzard-like conditions over the course of the game, has divided football fans.

In one camp, there are football fans who absolutely loved when the snow started as the teams came out of the locker rooms for the second half.

In the other camp, there are fans who think football should only be played in a hermetically sealed environment—protected from all the elements—in a dome.

This is what having the Super Bowl in a dome—or warm weather city—has done to fans. And the anti-weather crowd is also suffering from Fantasy Brain™️.

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NFL Football is Meant to Be Played Outdoors, in the Snow

Of all American sports, football is the most popular by far. And it's unique because the elements are an added element that don't affect other sports.

NHL and NBA games are always played inside, unless it's a stadium series game for hockey. I'd love to see NBA guys hooping on asphalt outdoors like the rest of us. Wind blowing the ball off course and all. Sun in their eyes.

And MLB games are outdoors, but there's a certain "baseball weather" that must be within acceptable limits.

In contrast, all weather is football weather. (Except lightning. Shocking, I know.)

That's how we got classics like The Ice Bowl. The Fog Bowl. The Bronco Blizzard in 1984. The "Tuck Rule" game.

These are some of the most notable games in NFL history. Did they make for great television? No. Not necessarily.

Were they entertaining?

That depends on what camp you land in.

The anti-weather, football in a dome camp

Interestingly, as the Broncos and Pats played a defensive battle—which would've been low-scoring even in pristine conditions—some folks complained about the weather.

I love Mina Kimes, she knows ball, and her podcast regularly informs me of stats she has access to that I don't. Plus, she puts it into great context.

But, I don't agree with Mina here.

Again, I think it depends on what you think is "enjoyable" football.

Mike Florio of Pro Football talk hastily wrote a column Monday saying Championship games should be played in neutral environments [LMAO, no] and in domes.

He griped that the AFC Championship Game was "unwatchable."

Florio's piece concludes, "If that kick had been good, however, there’s a good chance the Patriots and Broncos would have lingered through multiple overtimes, until some fluke occurrence allowed one of the teams to score.

If that’s what we want, fine."

Free football? Has anyone ever complained about a game going into OT?

A fluke occurrence deciding a game? That happens every week, Florio.

Do we want games in the weather? Yes, we do.

Kurt Warner, a dome QB, whined…I mean chimed in. “I just want to see the best team advance." The best team is the one who wins.

Championship games should not be in neutral environments because it would hurt the team who has earned the right to host it by earning the No. 1 seed and making it that far.

Championship games will not be in neutral environments because greedy billionaire owners want the revenue from hosting the game. From ticket sales, food sales, parking and much more.

Taking the championship games away from host cities is the exact opposite of allowing teams to host the Super Bowl, with all the revenue opportunities they afford the host city.

There's a reason why it was shot down in the 1960s, and why it was again in the 2000s.

Fantasy Brain™️and NFL RedZone have changed fans minds on football

Obviously, the game has moved from defensive-oriented to offensive-first over the last three decades. We've become accustomed to high-scoring games. We love the big plays. We love scoring.

Call it Fantasy Brain™️.

Fantasy football is one of the best parts of being an NFL fan. Not only do you have your favorite team, but you have your favorite players for the year. You now have a stake in many more games, and if you play fantasy football you learn about players and teams throughout the course of the season.

And yet, Fantasy Brain™️has rotted away the part of football fans who used to enjoy defensive battles.

The AFC Championship Game had a greater than 75% chance of being a defensive battle, even before the snow started to accumulate mid-way through the 3rd quarter. And it was; 7-7 at halftime, Drake Maye looked terrible, and Denver's backup QB Jarrett Stidham was outplaying him.

Again, before the weather took a turn for the worse.

But football fans, who have become focused on fantasy points piling up and scores shooting through the roof, have also forgotten that sometimes football games are kinda boring.

That's part of the sport.

Over the course of an NFL season, there are plenty of stinkers. We usually call them out on Thursday nights because the lack of preparation time seems to make the games worse. Similarly, overseas games are rarely good games, which is why the league should end them rather than making every team play one every year. As Robert Kraft (ew) said last week is coming soon.

Football's a game of momentum. Sometimes, one team takes off and the other team just can't keep up.

It's also why a lot of Super Bowls are stinkers. Last year's, for instance, was a blowout by the Eagles that was only fun if you really hated the Chiefs and relished in seeing them trounced. (Broncos Country enjoyed it. But it was still a bad game.)

And I blame it on NFL RedZone.

Do I love RedZone? Sure! Especially during the early window, when there are 8 games playing simultaneously, and before the Broncos play, which is usually the late window.

No human could watch 8 games at the same time. RedZone gives you a look into the games. But, you only see when teams are about to score.

RedZone goes hand-in-hand with Fantasy Brain™️because by tuning into Scott Hansen, you can keep tabs on your fantasy players. But it also makes it seem like all that ever happens in a football game is scoring.

That's just not true.

Football games have a unique start-and-stop motion to them. There are long breaks between every play. And sometimes teams have to punt back and forth over and over again.

That happened in the Rams-Seahawks December game when the NFC Championship teams finished regulation:

• LAR: 3-and-out
• SEA: 3-and-out
• LAR: Missed FG
• SEA: 3-and-out
• LAR: Punt
• SEA: End of half

It was still a good game overall, and even the most entertaining games sometimes have long stretches of bad play.

The anti-weather in football camp seem to believe that if there's no weather, we'll have a good, exciting, fun football game.

That just isn't always the truth. And sometimes weather-affected games are still great, too.

Of note: No one complained about the snow in the Pats-Texans game nor the snow and wind in the Bears-Rams game, both in the Divisional Round. New England crushed Houston in a bad game, but Chicago and LA coming down to the wire, complete with Caleb Williams OHMYGOD touchdown; that was a great game.

NFL Football Fans Should Love Snow Games

Whenever I turn on the TV and players are shown on the field, warming up for a coming game, and the snow is falling from the sky, I get amped.

I know this is going to be a fun three hours. I text screenshots to my brother and best friends. "Look at this!"

Immediately, expectations of what's going to take place have evaporated.

The elements are a literal added element that both teams, coaches, and players all have to deal with.

Snow games mean whacky stuff can happen. Which is a huge part of being a football fan. We love big plays, and we love them even more when they're unexpected.

Football's historically been played in the elements

Remember, football was first played in Canada in 1861 in November. It was cold and probably snowing that day. The first American football game was between Rutgers and Princeton in New Jersey Nov. 1869. It was likely cold and possibly snowing.

Football, I've explained to family members who are just now getting into it, is a weird game that was created around the time of the Civil War.

Football resembles war. It's about taking territory. Moving into your opponent's territory. Getting so deep in the territory you score. It's about imposing your physical will against the opponent. There are casualties, people are bloodied, it's a brutal game.

There's a reason why football and war are still symbiotic today. Why NFL games are basically a recruitment tool of the military. From the Salute the Service games in November to the military flyovers, to the incessant Army commercials between the breaks in the action.

You can't take politics out of sports, after all. And football is a game modeled after war.

Basketball, soccer, hockey, lacrosse; these are all much different sports where you run up and down the field/court and score on one end or the other. Football is completely different.

And just like in war, one cannot control the elements. You fight in the cold, the snow, the rain; the tougher side wins.

Adam Rank loves football in the elements and gets that’s what it’s all about.

Snow and football go hand-in-hand in Broncos Country

As a kid in the early 90s, I remember going to Mile High Stadium one cold Sunday afternoon and forgetting my gloves, my dad gave me one of his to put both my hands into. His beers froze into beer slushies. And we cheered "Marty, Marty!" taunting Marty Schottenheimer, then head coach of the Chiefs.

In middle school, a friend took me to a game and his parents smuggled in hot chocolate with schnapps in it. I even got a full pulls, as we froze our asses off and the Broncos lost.

And in high school, I took my then girlfriend to her first game in the snow. We luckily had a blanket, something my dad never brought, but my feet were numb by the end of the contest.

Snow is part of Colorado culture. Every Broncos home game they show the mountains and people skiing—well, not this year because there's been no snow in the high country. Cheering on the Broncos in the cold is a badge of honor for those in Broncos Country.

Football in the snow is awesome

It's not just that, playing football in the snow is fun. Period.

If you grew up in LA, or Texas, or Florida, you've probably never played football in the snow. And that's a damn shame.

Growing up in Denver, we used to get outside when it snowed, run around in the snow, dive in it, swim in the powder.

I can faintly remember one time in sixth grade, a group of us went to the middle school and there was around a foot of snow on the ground. We ran around, played some catch, fell down and laughed.

Core memory, stuff.

And snow games also remind you these giant men, who are tough and "scary" and mean, are all just big kids at heart. Men playing a children's game.

Again, football has been played in the elements going back 150-plus years.

The 1982 Snow Plow Game. The 1981 AFC Championship Game in -59 degree weather. The 2013 Eagles-Lions game where LeSean McCoy went for 217 yards on the ground. The 2001 Divisional Round "Tuck Rule" game.

1984 Bronco Blizzard game.

The NFL has seen a ton of fantastic snow, cold, and otherwise crazy weather games in its history.

Playing football in the elements is written in the DNA of the game. Sheil Kapadia of The Ringer Football Show agrees.

Indoor football is ruining the game

Playing football inside is a bastardization of the great game we love.

Forcing Super Bowls (mostly) indoors has led to a revolution where we're going to go from 10 indoor stadiums to 17 in the next five years, and it only makes sense that the domes will continue to take over for outdoor venues as time goes on.

Denver's building a retractable roof stadium. Which sucks. The weather is part of the homefield advantage (even if it didn't work out that way Sunday, it has many times in the past). Same in Kansas City. And Cleveland, Washington, Tennessee, and Chicago.

Not only does putting an outdoor team in a dome affect their homefield advantage, but indoor teams struggle when they go to outdoor environments.

According to this Sports Insights piece, indoor teams went 12-44 in outdoor stadiums in the playoffs from 1990-2019. I added up the 2019-2024 playoff games and indoor teams went 3-11 in outdoor venues over that span. That’s a very low 21.4% win percentage for indoor teams playing outdoors in the playoffs since 1990. It’s the same percentage the last six years, too. This playoffs, dome teams went 1-1 in cold weather games.

That puts one team at a disadvantage. Having half the teams in domes is hurting the competitive nature of the NFL.

Soon, Denver will be the "soft", indoor team. They'll be used to playing at 72 degrees, no wind, no snow. And when they have to travel to New England or Buffalo in the snow in 2031, they'll wither like peaches in Palisade during a cold snap.

Billionaire owners are ruining football because they can make money on hosting a Super Bowl once every 30 years. Oh, and a Final Four, again, once a generation.

And the Fantasy Brain™️people applaud it. NFL RedZone die-hards, who never watch a complete NFL game from start to finish, love the dome revolution.

If that's you, maybe you don't actually love football, maybe you just love fantasy football.

Because either you love football in the snow or you don't love football at all.

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