Twenty-one degrees and cold, flurries the night before, and draping shadows across Sports Authority Field will provide the arctic backdrop for Saturday Divisional Playoff game.
Or merely perfect football weather.
“It should be fun,” said Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco of this frosty probability. “We’ve had pretty mild weather around here. But I think we’ll all adapt pretty well to it and just be ready to go.”
The frigid temperatures are nothing new for either team, although neither has been forced to play in such chilly conditions this year.
Denver’s average temperature for the month of January is 41-degrees, in Baltimore, Maryland (or Owings Mills, just northwest of the city, where the Ravens practice facility is located) it’s only slightly higher at 47 degrees. Both sides understand the complications that come with the cold, the strategy and effect on a game, but neither will readily make it an excuse.
“It’s just going out and playing in a different climate and whatever it is,” Ray Lewis said. “They have to play in the same climate we are in whether they’re acclimated to it or not. Coach didn’t make it an issue, so we’re not going to make it an issue.”
The intensity of the game, the heat of competition will also do its part to warm the players are much as any heater or extra layer (minus the sleeves, of course).
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