The game of football you can count on being played in whatever Mother Nature threw at you. Every football player at some point dreams of playing a game in the snow. Does not matter where that player hails from. Playing in the snow is something you will always remember doing. Who forgets about the 1967 NFL Championship game coined the Ice Bowl in Green bay that featured the Cowboys playing the Packers in frost bite conditions? I was not even born yet, but I recall that game because the NFL will not let that game be forgotten. With high lights of that epic showdown shown year after year on any cold game presently played.

Back in the 1960’s, football was football as the rules were different. Dick Butkus back then would clothesline people and chased you down like a rabid dog looking to take a chunk out of your flesh. Defenses in present times have to play flag football so they don’t draw the yellow flag their way. The Buffalo Bills were hosting the Cleveland Browns this weekend in Western New York. The weather has Buffalo being covered in lake effect snow throughout the weekend which can accumulate 1-3 foot of the white stuff being dumped on the entire town. The NFL put the kibosh on this home game in Buffalo and moving to the town of Detroit. A choice of snow or trapped playing in Detroit mean many may settle for whatever Mother Nature is offering.

Buffalo will now be in Detroit in back to back weeks as they play the Lions on Thanksgiving morning. The NFL has safety concerns as the National Weather Service issued a lake effect snow warning which is projected to bring gusts of wind off Lake Erie. The wind’s gusts could get up to 35 MPH that could lead to power outages across Western New York. In 2014, the league moved a home game from Buffalo to Detroit. Bills won that game that year beating the Jets 38-3. The league moved that game from Sunday to Monday with both teams having to travel. Bills left Buffalo on Friday that year as the snow was already coming down and some players were unable to dig their cars out. The team picked them up in snow mobiles. The league did not want to push this Sunday’s game to Monday since the Bills will be playing already on a short week. The Bills Mafia will not see another blinding snow game like they did in 2017 when the Colts were visiting in the month of December.

That Sunday in December, the Bills celebrated a victory versus the Colts with snow angels.

I understand the safety issues as you want to keep the players and fans safe throughout some unpredictable circumstances. What happens if something like this kind of snow storm occurred in the playoffs? Teams in colder climates use these conditions to their advantage when it comes to winning big games in the post-season like those Bills teams in the 1990’s. What would the future look like for the game of football that would go off without a hitch except for lightning? Seems like football is going more baseball-like. Little bad weather so let’s postpone the game. I remember the fog bowl in Chicago between the visiting Eagles versus the Bears.

Would a game like this be able to be played in today’s NFL? Rudolph with your nose so bright, won’t you be my quarterback tonight?

The future will be bleak when it comes to playing football outside as domes will eventually take over every city in the NFL. Those old NFL films of the Purple People Eaters are the Vikings defense breathing the cold air as they look like they were smoking cigarettes on the field.

Then the warm weather team, the Buccaneers, playing in the snow in Green Bay. Buccaneers had a nasty streak of games in a row. They could not win a game when temperatures were under 40 degrees. Steve Young was sacked as the face of his helmet was white washed in snow.

Snow games have been bad as well when the league came up with the special tuck rule because Tom Brady fumbled in a playoff game versus the Raiders.

If the referees got that right and Raiders recovered it, that could have changed things historically with Tom Brady. Would Brady have won all those Superbowls? Would the Raiders have won the Superbowl if they got past the Patriots in that one. One wrong call can change a team’s path. How many players were affected by the Astros cheating to win the World Series in 2017? Raiders were also involved in a game on ice with the Steelers in 1975 during a battle to get to Superbowl X.

The Chicago Bears will be seeking a dome hoping to move to Arlington Heights, Illinois away from the lakefront in Chicago. If that happens, which would be a great move by the Bears, the only team in the division remaining without a roof over their heads is the Packers. Why should the warm weather teams get advantages like Miami when teams have to go to play in sweltering heat? If Tom Brady can draw a roughing, the passer call on simple tackle warm weather teams will be capped in the future. The game is going where every player will be wrapped up in bubble wrap as well before each game starts. I loved seeing Jim Kelly prevail in cold games against the warm weather teams like the Raiders and Dolphins coming to play in the cold snowy conditions of Buffalo.

The people playing against Josh Allen in fantasy are probably upset with this game being moved to Detroit. The Bills Mafia will be still heating up the wings shirtless outside in their back yard with their grills fired up as they will be home bound on their church day. Let’s hope the city of Detroit becomes Buffalo 2.0 as the team needs back-to-back victories right now versus the Browns and the Lions.