In From the Cold
By David Damiani
In his entertainingly animated autobiography, The Artful Dodger, former Los Angeles (but unlike the inanely rechristened Angels, not "of Anaheim") manager Tommy Lasorda recounts ranting at his players before a 1981 playoff game in chilly Montreal–one that many pundits had essentially ceded to the Expos simply because of their alleged advantage at playing in cold weather. Rhetorically demanding to know whether the Expos' players were from Alaska, Lasorda reminded his squad that all major league teams have players from the South, California, and the tropics who do not magically become one with the temperatures of their surroundings--and demanded that his team not wear jackets during pregame introductions.
The Dodgers won that game, but it takes more than that to defeat an asinine, neurotically repeated idea in the press. The myth that teams from warm-weather cities or with domed home fields automatically wilt in the cold blooms brightest during the NFL playoffs each year, even though the concept is the most moronic you'll read or hear in the sports media this month other than any lazy, elitist, ignorant, and recycled comments regurgitated about Super Bowl host city Jacksonville. (Unable to summon even the energy or critical thinking required for pompous hackwork, National Review's Geoffrey Norman thought it sufficient to repeat the city's name in incredulous italics. Which, fittingly, merely recycled a media convention from when the Jaguars received a franchise in 1993.)
Like most life forms that thrive on cold weather, this myth is a hardy one and difficult to kill. It got a fresh coat of paint two weeks ago when the Philadelphia Eagles hosted and handled the Atlanta Falcons (both domed and Southern) in the NFC Championship game. The media soothsayers explained before the game that dynamic Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, a dangerous runner, would not be effective after a few falls on the frozen turf. The same Michael Vick who built his reputation in a snowy mountain college town at Virginia Tech.
The game proved nothing more conclusively than that the Eagles were a stronger team than the Falcons. And if cold affected the outcome, then how to explain the previous two years' NFC Championship games? In both, the Eagles fell to a warm-weather underdog--the Carolina Panthers in 2004, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers one year prior.
The Buccaneers were themselves the poster children for the myth prior to that victory, as they suffered through an unprecedented run of bad football in cold weather, failing to win a game in temperatures below 40 degrees for nearly 20 years. This was endlessly repeated in the sports media and openly mocked by stripping Eagles fans in a chilly 2001 playoff win over the Bucs. What no one had the temerity to mention was that the Bucs had an unprecedented run of bad football, period, during much of that span. Tampa fielded only one winning team from 1983 through 1998 and had several formidable cold-weather foes in its division.
One Bucs rival, the Minnesota Vikings, has gained a reputation as a soft outdoor team since moving into a domed stadium in 1982. One ESPN commentator suggested this year that the Vikings should return to an outdoor stadium to regain their edge and consistency. Minnesota then wiped the floor with the ice-in-the-veins Packers on their famous frozen tundra in the first round of this season's playoffs. If the cold rendered Minnesota indomitable when the Vikings played outdoors at Metropolitan Stadium, the playoff records don't show it. Minnesota lost home playoff games to San Francisco (1970) and Dallas (1971 and 1975) during the height of the best era in team history.
It's true that extreme cold, ice, snow, or windy conditions can ground a speed- or passing-oriented team, and recent teams that fit this description (the late 80s/early 90s Houston Oilers, the St. Louis Rams and Indianapolis Colts of recent vintage) have played home games in warm weather and/or domes. But as a general rule, good and balanced teams play well in all situations and the weather is at most a peripheral factor. To his eternal credit, ESPN commentator Tom Jackson slammed the media chorus recently, noting that when his Broncos suffered through 14 straight losing seasons no one talked about the altitude factor when playing in Denver. Similarly, John Facenda's epic description of the Packers' frosty home field wasn't commonly found in the public parlance during the Packers' largely horrible decade of 1983-1992. The cold also mysteriously becomes a non-issue when the Bills or Browns or Eagles or Giants have a poor season, but becomes a major factor when they're winning. Call it coincidence.
Amusingly, the "no domed stadium team has reached the Super Bowl" corollary to the cold field advantage hokum, seemingly buried after three recent Super Bowl appearances from the Falcons and Rams, was exhumed this year: some commentators pointedly noted before the Eagles/Falcons game that no dome-dweller had won on the road to make the Super Bowl. Which brings to mind one football metaphor that suits the media mythmakers well--whenever your side is losing the rhetorical battle, keep moving the goalposts.
Sports aficionado David Damiani works as a tax accountant for Witt Mares in Newport News, Virginia.
