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By Joe Kozlowski
Sports Team Lead
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When you think of playoff football, you probably imagine physical games taking place in cold, winter weather. Maybe there's even a bit of snow involved, adding to the atmosphere.
And while it looked like the Miami Dolphins would have a home-field advantage for much of the year, a late-season slump bumped Mike McDaniel's men down to the fifth seed. That means they'll start the postseason on the road in Kansas City.
Even in a comparatively down year, playing the Chiefs in a must-win game is a tough ask. But during this Super Wild Card Weekend, the Dolphins will face an extra challenge: the weather.
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There's always room for things to change, but the game is certainly going to take place in cold conditions. As of Wednesday morning, the forecast estimates temperatures to be around 8 degrees Fahrenheit, although it will feel in the low-negatives.
As CBS Sports points out, only four games in NFL history have ever been played in sub-zero weather; wind chill doesn't factor in there, but it still provides some context for just how cold it will be.
And that's more than generally unpleasant. It leaves the Dolphins staring down a troubling historical trend.
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How Do the Dolphins Perform in Cold Weather?
It's something of a cliché to say that warm-weather teams struggle when faced with colder weather conditions. We're talking about professional athletes with a wealth of resources at their disposal; how much can the temperature matter?
Well, when it comes to the Miami Dolphins, there is a trend.
The Florida club has played 74 outdoor games when the temperature dropped below 40 degrees Fahrenheit dating back to 1966, according to Stathead's data. The club has won 25 of those contests, losing 48 times. There was one tie sprinkled into the mix.
But how you interpret that data is up to you. On one hand, you can assert that the sample size is so broad that it's irrelevant. Games played in the 1970s have no bearing on what happens now. But by the same token, you could say that if a trend has continued across multiple decades with all sorts of player turnover, there's something to the idea that Miami struggles in the cold.
If you'd like to zoom things in a bit tighter, the Dolphins are 0-4 in sub-40-degree games during the 2020s. Tua Tagovailoa's performances during those outings have been something of a mixed bag. His stats haven't been awful—he threw for 890 yards, five touchdowns and five interceptions across three cold-weather contests in 2021 and 2022—but the QB ultimately went 0-3.
In the postseason, only that final result will matter.
And given that Miami's strength is putting points on the board (the club sits atop the league in yards per game and is second in points per game as compared to the 21st-ranked scoring defense), the weather could put a damper on things.
If there is a silver lining for the Floridians, though, the weather could dampen the famous Arrowhead Stadium home-field advantage. Plenty of tickets are available for low prices on the secondary market, and it could be tougher to get loud under five layers of clothing.
But, in the NFL, anything can happen on any given Saturday. In this case, we'll have to see how the weather plays into things.
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