Updated 2007-12-14 07:42
S’no problem for these Patriots
They’re ready for some bad weather Sunday
NFL. No one is less of a fan of global warming than the Patriots.
Over the years, the Patriots have enjoyed great success in the chill of winter — they’re 22-3 since 1993 when the mercury is 34 degrees or less, including last Sunday’s 34-13 win over the Steelers. At home in the snow, they’re even more dominant: Dating back to 1978, they’re 9-0 in snow games in Foxborough.
For the Jets, the forecast for Sunday afternoon at Gillette might be an inconvenient truth: Weather.com is calling for rain, snow and wind, with high’s in the 30s. The Patriots are bracing for the cold, eagerly anticipating a chance to clinch home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs with a win.
Well, almost all the Patriots are looking forward to the potentially nasty weather.
“I’ll pretend like it’s a West Coast game, with sunny sunshine out there,” said veteran linebacker Junior Seau with a smile. The 38-year-old Seau is a West Coast native who didn’t play in a cold-weather game until he was in the pros.
“I’ll give you four quarters — put it that way.”
Seau aside, there are several veterans who have gotten used to the nasty conditions so prevalent in the Northeast at this time of year. Quarterback Tom Brady has a career record of 24-2 in games where the temperature is less than 40 degrees, and he knows the game changes when the temperature drops and the snowflakes start to fly.
“Any time you play in a bad-weather game, your level of awareness and concentration has to go up — you can’t take anything for granted,” Brady said. “The center-quarterback exchange becomes very important. Handoffs to the running backs become important. Depending on the wind conditions, it makes it difficult to throw the ball, maybe to the outside part of the field or down the field. You try to just complete the ball and let guys run.
“I think we’ve been in games over the years when weather has played a factor. We try to practice outside as much as we can as well to get used to those elements.”
When it comes to home-field advantage, Gillette Stadium has been kind to the Patriots. Since the start of the 2003 season, the Patriots have a 32-6 regular-season mark at home, and many of the most memorable home wins of the Belichick Era have come against the backdrop of bad weather. The Snow Bowl win in the 2001 playoffs over the Raiders was in the midst of a storm, and a 2003 win over the Dolphins included a memorable snow-tossing incident — in tune to “Rock and Roll, Part 2” — with the fans.
With so much cold weather experience over the last few years, the Patriots have learned several lessons: Do what you have to do to prepare ahead of time.
“You do everything you can to put yourself in the best position,” Belichick said. “There’s a lot of things you can do to try to maximize it, regardless of what the conditions are. You can try to find the best way to attack or defend whatever side of it you’re on, on any play.
“Part of that’s the conditions; part of that’s what you’re doing and how it matches up against the opponent and what they’re doing on that particular play.”
There are other things that make playing in Foxborough hard for opponents. Belichick remembers coming into town as a head coach with the Browns and an assistant with several teams, including the Giants and Jets, and realizing the nasty Sunday traffic can help Patriots fans make opponents feel uncomfortable.
“They get you on Route 1 about four miles before you even get to the stadium. It’s kind of like a parade,” Belichick said with a smile. “They know what the visiting buses are. They get you early and they escort you all the way into the stadium. I’ve been on that one a few times.”
