“If the numbers hold for what they’re saying, it will be the coldest game in our history,” the Chiefs longtime equipment director tells PEOPLE exclusively. The Kansas City Chiefs are ready to tackle the cold!
As the reining Super Bowl champs continue their quest to clinch a consecutive NFL championship title, the Chiefs will face off against the Miami Dolphins in what’s predicted to be the coldest game in Kansas City history. The wild card playoff game will be held at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City on Jan. 13 at 7:00 p.m. CT — and according to the National Weather Service, a winter weather advisory has been issued in Kansas City through Jan. 16. Plus, warns of wind chill reaching “as low as 35 below zero.”
Frigid temps, however, are a familiar opponent to the Kansas City team — unlike the Florida-based Dolphins, who have lost 10 straight games when it was 40° F or lower at kickoff. (Coincidentally, the Fins’ coldest game ever played was against the Chiefs in 2008, when they kicked off in 10° F at Arrowhead.)
Allen Wright, Equipment Director of the Kansas City Chiefs, tells PEOPLE exclusively that his team’s had its “fair share of cold weather games” over the course of his 41 years with the franchise. “Once you get down into single digits … there’s really not much difference. It’s just plain cold,” he says.
As for whether he thinks the Chiefs have an advantage over the Dolphins because of the cold, Wright says it’s a question he gets asked “all the time.” From his experience, he finds “it doesn’t really matter” for Miami players since they “may have went to college and played in a cold weather climate.” Record-breaking temperatures or not, Wright tells PEOPLE the Chiefs are prepared. The longtime equipment director says he “tries to give everybody as many options as possible” because “everybody is so subjective when it comes to the cold.”
And while Swifties will be eagerly waiting to see if Taylor Swift makes an appearance at the game to cheer on her boyfriend Travis Kelce, football fans can be assured that the superstar tight end will be ready to go either way. Wright says Travis is “a good Cleveland kid, so he’s used to the cold!” Read on for how the Kansas City Chiefs are preparing for the freezing-temperature game against the Miami Dolphins, according to Allen Wright.
Due to geography alone, many fans assume the Chiefs have an advantage over the Dolphins because they practice in the cold on the day-to-day. However, Wright tells PEOPLE that’s not necessarily the case.
“It’s one of those things that every organization or every head coach has his way of doing it,” he says of NFL team practices. Having been with “so many head coaches over the years,” he’s learned that “some go by that theory and practice in it.” Wright says others, meanwhile, believe there’s “no way to really prepare” for record-cold temperatures and opt to “stay warm and have good practices all week … and then deal with the cold weather on the day of the game.”
Ultimately, Wright says it “just depends on the head coach at that time.” As for Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, Wright says he’s “right in the middle” of the two practice strategies and “takes a real common sense approach to it.” “If you can go out there and get your work done without it being a huge distraction, then we go out,” Wright explains. “We went outside this week and it was — with windchill — low 20s.”
