Tampa Bay Buccaneers v New Orleans Saints | Jonathan Bachman/GettyImages
It’s officially that time of year: NFL teams are doing wonky things to try to prepare for a December night game at Lambeau Field.
Temperatures in Green Bay look positively festive – it’ll supposedly be snowing and near 20 degrees by the time that the Packers’ Monday Night Football game against New Orleans is set to kick off. Playing in those types of conditions is never easy for opposing teams, but it’s especially tough on teams like the Saints, who play the vast majority of their games either inside or in warm weather.
And if you’re one of those people who’s skeptical that a few silly snowflakes can get in the heads of professional athletes, look no further than the latest anecdote out of Saints practice this week.
In a story written this weekend by ESPN’s Saints reporter Katherine Terrell, the details of how the QBs are getting ready for the cold will make Packers fans feel awfully good about clinching a playoff berth on Monday night.
The Packers’ home-field advantage is very clearly already in the Saints’ heads
“This morning, Janocko took us in the cafeteria freezer, where it was like 10 degrees, and we’re just going through the whole script in there, and so just doing that, that helped a lot,” Rattler said. “So hopefully it’s not 10 degrees, but we’ll be ready.”
It is, admittedly, a fun little anecdote. Everyone loves a field trip! A few minutes in an industrial freezer isn’t exactly an apples-to-apples comparison to 60 minutes of playing professional football in a blizzard, but Janocko gets points for creativity.
But more importantly: the Saints are cooked. And maybe ‘cooked’ is the wrong adjective for this specific example, but you get what I mean. No amount of standing in a cafeteria freezer is going to work.
If they’re already that in their own heads about the cold, the cold has already won. Everyone knows you’re not cold until you admit you’re cold, and the Saints already admitted it. They merely adopted the cold. The Packers were born in it; molded by it. But maybe the QBs should stand in the freezer a couple more times, I’m sure that’ll help.
