Mr. Royal covers today. Talking about Super Bowls, snow, and Charlie Brown…

Why I Hope It Snows During The Super Bowl

DISCLAIMER: I know most people disagree with me on this issue. As I’ve said a number of times, I don’t care. It’s the internet. I can pretty much say whatever I want. Get your own website.

Anyways… I hope it snows during the Super Bowl. Look I’m not saying I want to see blizzard-like conditions where people are sliding everywhere and Marshawn Lynch or Kno-Kno Moreno go Shady McCoy over a defense that can’t even plant their feet. I’m not even looking for ’01 Raiders-Patriots (or the “Tuck Rule” game, if you prefer).

No. I just hope it’s cold. And I hope it snows

But it won’t.

It’s going to be just a cloudy gray day in the dirty Jerz for the Super Bowl. Which if you ask me, is a worst-case scenario for the NFL, and a worst-case scenario for any fan of natural, classic football.

No, it will not snow during the Super Bowl. I lived in New York long enough to know that although weather forecasts suck, they rarely mess up THAT bad. So if you’re a degenerate gambler, put 100 bucks down on this prop bet and make a few back on Sunday.

(Pic of an actual prop bet by the way. You can check them all out here: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/01/23/will-it-snow-and-the-full-list-of-super-bowl-prop-bets/)

Why is this a worst case scenario? Because its just going to be cold and gross in the Jerz. No one likes that. It’s kind of like being freezing cold on Christmas with no snow. It sucks. The whole point of a White Christmas is the WHITE Christmas part. My theory has always been, if it’s going to be colder than Santa’s nipples after a full-night’s sleigh ride, then can we at least have snow?

Snow cancels school, it gives us snowmen material.

It’s the reason why we sing about 90% of all Christmas Carols, it lets us go sledding, gives us the Winter Olympics, and the X-Games, and those epic snow ball fights kids have at recess. You know the kind where instead of picking teams and playing kickball, you pick teams, take 10 minutes building up defenses, and then have a Battle Royale of snow ball fights until even the cool teachers are like, “OK seriously, maybe you were right we should stop this. Billy just took an iceball to the face.”

THAT, my friends is the purpose of snow. And I hate to shatter your world here, but football was – and is – meant to be played in snow as much as when its 71 degrees and sunny.

I know people are going to disagree with me. I get that. I know people that know football a LOT better than me disagree with me on this. As a matter of fact, the Almighty Ditka himself called the idea of having the Super Bowl in the New York cold “stupid.” The prevailing argument is, “Hey, these are the best two teams in the NFL. They’ve come so far and its silly to add an element like snow that could cause a turnover or some kind of freak event in the game that could affect the outcome.” Read more of Ditka’s comments here : http://www.torontosun.com/2014/01/27/iron-mike-ditka-rips-super-bowl-setting-as-stupid

Here’s my absolute favorite of all of Ditka’s comments: “And the element of luck comes into it, and it shouldn’t happen in that game.”

Really? Luck should never happen in a Super Bowl game? How about in football, ever? Is there no room for luck? Remember that time Ricardo Lewis caught a ball he had no business even being in the vicinity of and sent his team to the greatest BCS National Championship I’ve ever watched?

And Chris Davis’ 109-yard field goal attempt return against Bama; pure skill and part of the game right? Or how about Aaron Murray’s QB sneak in that Georgia-Auburn game, the one that put Georgia in front where he probably didn’t score but you couldn’t really tell on the replay? Mad skills.

Ugh, spare me.

If that’s the case, let’s just put both teams in the Madden simulator, turn fumbles off, give the kickers 100 ratings and let that decide the winner.

I didn’t want to write this article. But I’ve had to put up with two whole weeks of non-stop “will the weather affect the Super Bowl” talk that is absolutely useless. The question we should be asking is, “Should inclement weather be a part of football at all?” And if you think the answer is yes, if you believe that bad weather can and should be a part of NFL football in November, then it should damn sure be a part of it January or February.

So much whining. The Super Bowl is a football game. With all the fanfare and crap around it, sometimes we lose sight of that. It’s about 11 guys trying to put the ball across that goal line, and if you concede that it’s OK for football to be played in bad weather at all then they should be playing in it for the Super Bowl every few years.

College football is a little different. For the most part, it is and has been dominated by southern teams, and therefore most big games are played in warm climates and good weather. But some of the most storied franchises in the NFL are from regions of the country where it snows hard and snows often. Franchises like Pittsburgh, New England, New York, Chicago, and Green Bay. There are some good college football teams in the Midwest, but most of them are in the South. Not so in the NFL.

I think it’s unbelievably hypocritical that athletes and fans who whine about all the new flags for “targeting,” “pass interference,” and “unnecessary roughness” also turn around and complain that we still play football in inclement weather. You know who I’m talking about. Guys like Ditka. Your football buddy who spits out his beer when he sees a “roughing the passer” call for helmet to helmet contact to screams, “WHY DON’T YOU JUST PUT SKIRTS ON EM’ ALREADY!” or the quiet guy at the end of the bar who shakes his head and says, “Pretty soon they’ll just have the boys play FLAG football and be done with it.”

My biggest issue with overtime in college football (and the NFL to a degree), hockey shootouts, and soccer shootouts is that you decide the outcome of the game, without PLAYING the game in its purest form. To me, the possibility of cold weather, the possibility of rain, the possibility of snow IS an element of football in its purest form.

Some of the same folks who shout and hoot and holler about defense being dead in the NFL want us to only play Super Bowls in Tampa, or San Diego, or Phoenix, or in a dome in New Orleans. Let me be very clear, I think the movement of NFL teams away from grass fields in the elements towards turf fields and domes are just as much to blame for the gaudy offensive passing numbers we’re seeing every year as the new pass interference and unnecessary roughness rules and interpretations.

Let’s flash back to 2011. In a year where Peyton Manning WAS NOT playing in the NFL we saw 3 quarterbacks throw for over 5,000 yards (Brees, Stafford, and Brady). 3 quarterbacks. THREE Quarterbacks. Before 2011, that had only happened twice in the history of the NFL. Even Eli Manning threw for 4933 yards in 2011. I would argue that it’s more than just a rule change that is affecting these kinds of passing numbers. The overall attitude/approach towards successful football has progressively moved further away from the 1500-yard back and further towards the 5000-yard QB. Those that find this trend disturbing and then claim its “unfair to the players” to have them compete on the biggest sports stage in the United States in inclement weather speak out of both sides of their mouth.

The answer is either start treating football like we treat all basketball games (basically, play it in a dome) or baseball (cancel games for snow/rain), OR shut up and preserve the game as is. All the whining about the proposed modification of the extra point rule is insufferable in the midst of a debate about never hosting a Super Bowl in adverse weather ever again.

The U.S. played a World Cup qualifying soccer game in the snow a few months ago. A soccer game. In the snow.

 

Here’s a fun idea, encourage teams’ coaches and coordinators to, oh I dunno, be adaptive maybe? Maybe if it snowed Peyton might have to throw the ball less and Kno-Kno might have to run the ball more? Maybe Russell Wilson and the read-option need to be a bigger focus for the Broncos scout offense this week in practice. God forbid we allow weather to add another wrinkle to a game that moves further and further away from what we used to play in our backyard.
If the answer is to level the playing field and make sure conditions are the same for everyone in every game everywhere, then do it. But I want to see every team in a dome. I want to see a standard dictating an on-field temperature within a certain tolerance. I want zero wind conditions on the field in every game. And who knows, maybe next I think it’s unfair that the Seahawks defense gets to play two playoff games with that insanely loud crowd noise to their advantage too.

Isn’t it funny that what intelligent quarterbacks like Manning are MOST-worried about is wind, not snow? All the commentators and talking-heads want to whine about New York in February and mention the wind like it’s kind of an afterthought. If we get a wind gust by the bay in San Fran one year for a Super Bowl that causes an otherwise perfect pass to get intercepted, is San Fran any better of a Super Bowl location than New York?

What about when we try and put the Super Bowl in an outdoor stadium with a typically warm climate and it gets cold and nasty anyways? After all, it snowed in Atlanta this week and shut the city down for like, three days. Super Bowl VI was played in the Big Easy and temperatures topped out in the low 40’s.

But as I mentioned before, it won’t snow on Sunday. It will be gray, and cold. And people will still whine. At least if it snowed, a few of us would get to see what could be the last Super Bowl ever in the snow. And it would be so much fun to watch. Very cool. Very different. It would test the myth that Peyton Manning can’t play in the snow. It would test the myth that a defense from Seattle is somehow better suited to deal with snow than a team from Denver. We would be able to see which coach made better adjustments. At least if it snowed there would be a reason for the cold. The cold would serve a purpose.

But it won’t snow on Sunday. It will be gray, and cold. And the Super Bowl will probably never be played outside a dome or north of the Mason-Dixon line again. What we now hate about the new NBA will start to creep into the NFL. Defense will die, and B-list quarterbacks like Matt Stafford and Eli Manning will continue to throw for 5000 yards.