Forces of Nature

George Allen used to call it “Ram weather.”

Although other players might call inclement weather something that couldn’t be printed in a family newspaper, Allen, when coach of the then-Los Angeles Rams, refused to concede that eye-blurring snowstorms or body-chilling cold fronts could affect his team. He knew driving rains could reduce a field to mud and howling winds could turn a spiraling football into an uncontrollable piece of leather, but that was for other coaches to worry about.

“It was also Redskin weather when he coached in Washington,” said Allen’s son, Bruce, a former Oakland Raider executive who reportedly will be named general manager of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers today. “Wherever his teams played, he told them it was their kind of weather.

“He made sure not to wear gloves or heavy jackets in those games. And he would always shake the hands of the players because he wanted them to feel his skin.”

Such an approach may be necessary this weekend in three of the four NFL divisional playoff games. The Indianapolis Colts will face the Chiefs in Kansas City, where temperatures are expected to be in the 40s with rain possible. The Green Bay Packers play the Eagles in Philadelphia and the Tennessee Titans will go to Foxboro, Mass., to face the New England Patriots, with temperatures predicted to be well below freezing at both sites.

“I remember,” Bruce Allen said, “one of the games, when my dad was coaching in Washington, was played in a huge blizzard. My dad had Harold McLinton, one of his linebackers, dive into a snow pile during warmups. And my dad would sometimes start snowball fights. People might have thought they were acting like idiots, but it was all part of my dad’s plan.

“He wanted to show that the weather could be fun. He would tell his players in the locker room that the bad weather outside was just part of the environment of the stadium, a part they could use to their advantage. He would say, ‘It’s great that you get to play in the cold to show people what you can do.’ He was trying to create a different mentality.”

With rare exceptions, football is the only major sport in which weather can be a major factor. Baseball games are halted when raindrops start falling in appreciable amounts, and basketball and hockey, of course, are played indoors, with the exception of that recent outdoor NHL event in Edmonton.

Because the most crucial NFL games prior to the Super Bowl are played this time of year, when the weather can be the worst, the elements must be considered, despite George Allen’s best psychological ploys.

One of the most memorable games in NFL history was the “Ice Bowl,” the NFL championship game between the Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, played in frostbite conditions in Green Bay on New Year’s Eve, 1967.

Nearly four decades later, memories of that game linger in the form of two words, frozen tundra, and in the images of players seemingly frozen at the line of scrimmage, icicles hanging from their helmets.

Packer defensive end Clarence Williams carried a finger blackened by frostbite that day into retirement.

If he had been there, George Allen would have merely shrugged and called it “Packer weather.”

Bubba Smith, now living in Los Angeles and working as an actor, can still remember the shudder that went through him and his teammates when he was a member of the Houston Oilers in 1976, playing in Cincinnati.

“It was real cold and somehow they forgot our jackets,” Smith said. “We spent the whole game on the sidelines in just our uniforms.

“But once you start playing, your body heats up, you get your adrenaline going and playing in that kind of cold weather doesn’t really matter. That’s more of a sportswriters’ thing than a players’ thing.

“What did bother me was rain because of the mud it creates. All of a sudden, you can’t use your quickness. You can’t come off the ball too fast, because if you do, you just might fall straight on your face. Back then, the only thing we could do with our shoes was to put longer cleats on. But then, if you had to make a quick cut, your leg could get stuck in the ground and you could get hurt.

“Rain bothers the receivers because they can’t run their routes as well. And it can bother the quarterbacks because they can’t get a good grip on the ball.”

Told that rain was possible for Kansas City on Sunday, Smith predicted that would be a factor in the game.

“After seeing Indianapolis last week, you’d think they’d be pretty good, wouldn’t you?” he said. “But when they have to come out of that dome and go outside where they’ll be wet, Kansas City should be favored. They’re used to that. They practice in that kind of rainy weather.

“When a dome team like Indianapolis is in the rain, all of a sudden, their speed isn’t there anymore. They can’t make those quick cuts anymore.”

George Allen wasn’t the only coach to try to counter physical limitations with psychological reinforcement. Two years ago, the Raiders lost to the Patriots in Foxboro in a game best remembered for the controversial ruling that New England quarterback Tom Brady did not fumble at a critical point in the game. The Raiders blame the officials to this day, but they don’t blame the fact they were forced to play in heavy snow. Perhaps that’s because their coach, Jon Gruden, borrowing a page from Allen’s playbook, made a symbolic move before he left the locker room that day.

“Jon decided to wear his visor,” Bruce said, “instead of a hat or a knit cap, to show it was just another game.”

Logically, it should be. The Buccaneers were 0-21 in temperatures below 40 degrees until they beat the Bears in Chicago at the end of the 2002 regular season, and the Eagles in Philadelphia in the NFC championship game to reach the Super Bowl.

But how can a whole team be affected by the cold? It’s not as if the entire squad was born and raised in Tampa, and had never left the sunshine state. Cornerback Ronde Barber grew up and played his collegiate ball in Virginia. Receiver Joe Jurevicius grew up in Ohio and played at Penn State.

The Raiders are perceived as a warm-weather team, yet their quarterback, Rich Gannon, went to Delaware, and receiver Tim Brown played at Notre Dame, where snow is hardly considered foreign.

While the Packers were long known as a cold-weather team, their star quarterback of another era, Bart Starr, grew up in Mississippi, as did current quarterback Brett Favre.

“I don’t like the cold,” Starr once admitted. “I don’t think anybody likes to play in it.”

Even though Smith is a firm believer that field conditions are a factor, he doesn’t buy into winning and losing streaks based on cold weather.

“When Tampa Bay lost all those cold-weather games,” Smith said, “they just didn’t have the ingredients to beat those teams.”

Focusing on the weather can also be pointless because it’s so unpredictable. On New Year’s Eve, 1988, Philadelphia came to Soldier Field to face the Bears in a playoff game. Although it was cold, a bright sunshine bathed the city in a cloudless glow at kickoff time.

Soon, however, a stream of fog slithered in from Lake Michigan. While the rest of the city remained sunny, conditions at Soldier Field deteriorated into a scene reminiscent of a Sherlock Holmes movie.

The Eagles, who certainly hadn’t prepared for such conditions, were wearing white uniforms, which left quarterback Randall Cunningham with no visible receiving targets beyond 15 yards.

Predictably, the helpless Eagles lost, 20-12.

Maybe their coach, Buddy Ryan, should have gathered them at halftime, cracked a reassuring smile and told them, “We’re in luck, boys. It’s Eagle weather.”

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Weather Forecast

CAROLINA AT ST. LOUIS

* SATURDAY: 72 DEGREES, WITH AIR CONDITIONER BREEZE AT 1 MPH INSIDE THE EDWARD JONES DOME.

* Kickoff: 3:30 p.m. local time

* High: 15 degrees outside

* Low: 14 degrees outside

* Wind chill: 0 degrees outside

* Winds: Southwest at 9 mph outside

* Wind gusts: 16 mph outside

TENNESSEE AT NEW ENGLAND

* SATURDAY AFTERNOON: BREEZY AND QUITE COLD WITH PARTIAL SUNSHINE; NIGHT: MAINLY CLEAR AND FRIGID.

* Kickoff: 8:15 p.m. local time

* High: 11 degrees

* Low: 4 degrees

* Wind chill: -17 degrees

* Winds: Northwest at 15 mph

* Wind gusts: 29 mph

INDIANAPOLIS AT KANSAS CITY

* SUNDAY AFTERNOON: BREEZY AND MILDER. SUN MIXING WITH HIGH CLOUDS.

* Kickoff: Noon local time

* High: 50 degrees

* Low: 41 degrees

* Wind chill: 36 degrees

* Winds: South-southwest at 16 mph

* Wind gusts: 32 mph

GREEN BAY AT PHILADELPHIA

* SUNDAY AFTERNOON: TURNING CLOUDY. COLD WITH WINDS SUBSIDING. A CHANCE FOR A BIT OF SNOW OR FLURRIES IN THE AFTERNOON. NIGHT: CLOUDY WITH SNOW AND SLEET.

* Kickoff: 4:45 p.m. local time

* High: 24 degrees

* Low: 22 degrees

* Wind chill: 4 degrees

* Winds: South at 16 mph

* Wind gusts: 26 mph

Source: AccuWeather