Yikes. The weather forecast for the upcoming New Orleans Saints-Cleveland Browns game on Christmas Eve calls for wind and snow, with a high temperature of just 15 degrees. Weather.com’s 10-day forecast describes the expected conditions as “Windy with occasional snow showers. High near 15 Farenheit. Winds (southwest) at 25 to 40 (miles per hour). Chance of snow 50%. 1 to 3 inches of snow expected. Higher wind gusts possible.”
FirstEnergy Stadium is oriented east-to-west, so while specialists won’t be kicking into the wind there should be a cross-breeze that may push kicks awry. We should also expect both teams to lean heavily on their run game. The Browns have one of the NFL’s best running backs in Nick Chubb (who is averaging 5.0 yards per carry and 89.4 rushing yards per game this season), and the Saints are asking Alvin Kamara to handle the second-highest average of rushing attempts per game (13.7) of his career.
Neither squad has thrown the ball effectively this year. Cleveland welcomed Deshaun Watson into the lineup three weeks ago, but he’s clocking just 189.3 passing yards per game while throwing as many touchdown passes as interceptions (2), taking 6 sacks along the way. For comparison, Saints quarterback Andy Dalton is averaging 218.5 passing yards per game this season. Both of these teams want to run the ball and not put the game on their quarterback’s shoulders.
So we’ll see how it works out for them in what’s looking like miserable conditions. The Saints don’t have a great history in cold-weather games (defined as below 32 degrees Fahrenheit), having gone 2-4 since 2006, but they’ve won each of their last two games played below-freezing in the 2013 playoffs (at Philadelphia) and in 2010 (at Cincinnati). If you’re traveling for this game, be sure to grab some hot cocoa.
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