More Manning, more cold... this is getting old

Hey, guess what. Our guy Peyton Manning gets yet another chance tonight to prove he’s a winner in cold weather. That’s right, Manning and his Broncos host the ‘Bolts from sunny San Diego in tonight’s NFL Network Thursday night game.

Temperatures throughout the game should be in the mid 30s with no chance of precipitation … blah, blah, blah. Oh, I should mention that with a mild wind, it will feel like low 30s.

(That’s warmer than it was at my house this morning, but then I didn’t have big defensive linemen chasing me down looking to knock snot bubbles out of my nose.)

I don’t think Manning and the Broncos will have much trouble with the Chargers on a clear, but cold night in Denver. I can see it being one of those games where the Broncos’ defense gives up a lot of yards and points, but the Denver offense scores a lot more.

I’m not in the prediction business, but I’ll say Broncos 45 Chargers 31.

Upon further review... Opps! I really should stay out of the prediction business. Chargers 27 Broncos20

Battle For Weather Extremes

Tonight's the big game that could decide which team, Packers or Cowboys, gets home field advantage in the NFC Championship come Jan. 20. Much of the talk this week has been centered on, not the action on the field, but the number of American households that do not receive the NFL Network, thus leaving millions of fanatical football folks without a chance watch on their TV sets. But that's an issue for other blogs. Here, the focus is on weather. Not tonight's weather in Irving, where temps will be around 48 degrees with partly cloudy skies, but the projected weather for that late January NFC title game.

Today's Dallas Morning News provides a chart listing the record highs and record lows for both Green Bay and Irving for Jan. 20. Looking at the extremes we find that the record high for Irving is 83 degrees, set back in 1972. Ok, fine. Now the good stuff. The record low for Green Bay was a brain-numbing -25 degrees in 1985. I'm no math major, but it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to realize that a total of 108 degrees in temperate could be on the line tonight at Texas Stadium. Quick, call your cable provider and tell them you have to have the NFL Network. And tell them Jerry Jones sent you.

New NFL.com Treats Foul-Weather Fans

In case you missed it, the NFL has given its Web site a fresh look for the upcoming season. As usual, there are tons of cool features, one of which is a super cool photo gallery of bad weather games. The gallery features 31 photos of games played in recent memory – there's nothing of the Ice Bowl or anything that far back – that includes rain, sleet, snow, fog, and, well, go see for your self. If you love bad weather football, this gallery will blow right into your jet stream.

By the way, I still haven't seen the NFL Network's Top 10 Bad Weather Games. I taped it, yeah, taped. (My DVR still is on the UPS truck someplace.) But I still have not watched the show all the way through.

Drizzles:
This Arizona Republic reports today that the Arizona State football team has gone 10 consecutive practices without any weather issues, excpet for a small delay because of lightning.

Weather Games Encore

The NFL Network will show an encore presentation of the Top 10 Weather games at 4 p.m. Wednesday. The show originally aired weeks ago, but I never got a chance to see it. Given that the show will be on in the afternoon on July 4th, I’m pretty sure I’ll miss it again. Hey, there are a lot of hot dogs and hamburgers out there with my name on them. No time to watch TV.