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The Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans will play at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday, January 19, in the Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs.
The Kansas City Chiefs will take on the Houston Texans at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday, January 19, in the Divisional Round of the NFL playoffs. Whoever wins this game will go on to play in the AFC Championship game against the winner of Saturday’s Baltimore Ravens and Buffalo Bills matchup.
While there’s plenty of talk about this game and how blockbuster quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs and C.J. Stroud of the Houston Texans will navigate the high-stress playoff situation, there’s another factor that some NFL analysts and experts haven’t really been paying attention to, and that’s the weather.
Kansas City Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium Known for Cold Weather
While the Chiefs are used to playing in brutally cold weather at Arrowhead Stadium, it’s always a better thing when the team can play football without having to worry about freezing their fingers off. But, Saturday’s weather forecast looks cold. While there isn’t really snow in the forecast, the weather predicts a low of nine degrees and high of 25 degrees the day of the game, according to the Weather Channel and National Weather Service. Winds are expected be be between 10 to 20 miles per hour, which could add to the wind chill factor.
A colder game could surely benefit the Chiefs, because the Texas, of course, are located in balmy Texas. However, Houston’s quarterback is used to the cold weather from playing in frigid conditions at Ohio State. Stroud even says one of the reasons he decided to go to Ohio State was to get accustomed to playing in the cold.
“I don’t really have anything up my sleeve,” Stroud said in a January 14 press conference, when talking about the cold weather forecast for the game. “That is kind of one of the reasons I went to Ohio State was to play in the cold and get used to that.”
He added, “I have played in cold weather games before. It is different but it is better playing than when it’s wet and then it snows, which is better than if it rains. I am kind of used to it but at the same time, we don’t play in the cold here but I definitely have been trained by it in college.”
Of course, it’s all talk, and the Chiefs have a track record of playing well in cold weather. When the Chiefs played the Texans at home in December, the Chiefs won 27-19, and the weather was around 30 degrees at kickoff with a wind chill of 25 degrees. For the Chiefs against Miami Dolphins game last January, wind chills reached negative 27, and the air temperature dipped to 4 below zero. The Kansas City Chiefs won that game, 26-7.
Texas Head Coach Says Cold Weather ‘Is Not a Challenge for Us’
Texans coach DeMeco Ryans says that the team will “have to deal with” the cold weather and that “it’s not a challenge for us.”
“The weather can be a challenge if you allow it to be a challenge,” Ryans told press. “For me and for our guys, it’s something we can’t control. You don’t control the weather. Wherever we have to play, we’re ready to go play. We understand we’ll be on the road.”
Ryans added, “It’s going to be cold, that’s what we have to deal with. And it’s not a challenge for us, it’s just something the other team has to deal with, as well.”
