KIRKLAND – A Wisconsin resident since 1997, Darren Sharper is planning to play gracious host this weekend when the Seattle Seahawks visit Lambeau Field.
“I’m hoping to welcome (them) with some Wisconsin warmth,” the Green Bay Packers’ veteran safety said. “That’s about negative-20 degrees, snow flurries, winds about 15 miles per hour. That’s our kind of weather.”
The Packers are one of those rare teams that prays for snow on Sundays. The freezing conditions have played a factor in Green Bay’s 79-15 record at home since 1992. Quarterback Brett Favre has an all-time record of 35-1, including playoffs, in games played amid temperatures of 34 degrees or cooler.
By comparison, the Seahawks have an all-time record of 2-9 in those conditions.
So it’s safe to say that Sharper and his teammates are happy to see forecasts that call for Saturday snow flurries and a high of 23 degrees when the Seahawks and Packers play Sunday.
“You never know what the temperature is going to be,” Sharper said. “But if there are snow flurries this weekend, I think a lot of guys on our team will be excited about that.”
The baffling part about the Packers’ success in cold weather is that about 90 percent of their November and December practices are held indoors. And 15 of 22 Green Bay starters are from the lower half of the United States.
“They don’t have ice in their blood all the time,” Packers coach Mike Sherman said. “But we do live here. … So they become a little bit familiar with (the cold) and probably do achieve a certain confidence level when playing in it.”
The Seahawks’ roster is also dominated by warm-weather athletes. But even the sun-drenched players like Steve Hutchinson (Florida native, University of Michigan), Robbie Tobeck (Florida native, Washington State University) and Itula Mili (Hawaii native, Brigham Young University) played in cold conditions at college.
” (The Packers) are not tougher than anyone else,” said Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, a former Packer. “They have to play in the same conditions. I hope that’s not an excuse.”
Some of the Lambeau mystique got tarnished last January, when the Atlanta Falcons braved the cold and snow to hand the Packers a convincing 27-7 loss in the first round of the playoffs. But the Packers are still considered a cold-weather team that boasts one of the best home-field advantages in the NFL.
Based on the weather in Seattle this week, the Seahawks have no excuse to freeze up at Lambeau. A steady snow hit the team’s complex Wednesday morning, leading coach Mike Holmgren to play a little practical joke on the team.
“I went in and told the team first thing this morning: because we’re playing back there, we’re going to practice outside today; we have to get used to it,” Holmgren said during his afternoon press conference. “And then there was dead silence.”
The players were relieved to find out that the afternoon practice was actually held inside the Seahawks’ practice bubble, where the session featured bearable weather and synthetic crowd noise played through loudspeakers.
The Seahawks have experience playing at Lambeau, but the conditions during a 35-13 loss to the Packers on Oct. 5 were much different than what Sunday’s game should feature. In addition to a playoff atmosphere, the weather will be much colder than the 48-degree kickoff temperature that day.
If temperatures dip into the mid-20s, it could mark not only the coldest Seahawks game of the year, but also one of the coldest games in Seattle’s franchise history. That record was established in 2000, when a game at Denver was played in a 22-degree thermometer reading. Only two other Seahawks games – at Pittsburgh in 1992 and at Denver in 1999 – featured temperatures below 30 degrees.
“It’s all a mind thing,” Seahawks offensive lineman Floyd “Pork Chop” Womack said. “If you go in with the attitude that it’s cold, then it can defeat you. But if you go in with an attitude that it’s just football, then you don’t have to worry about the cold. Because they get cold too.”
Several Seattle players know what it’s like to play a cold game at Lambeau Field, most notably Hasselbeck, former Minnesota Viking John Randle and former Chicago Bear Bobby Engram.
But very few people have seen conditions as bad as the ones that greeted Damien Robinson and his Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammates in the 2000 season finale. The wind-chill factor was 15 degrees below zero, making it the sixth-coldest game in Packers history.
“It was so cold that it wasn’t even cold anymore,” the Seahawks’ safety said. “When you spit, it froze before it hit the ground.
“You really can’t worry about it anymore because you have to play the game. You can’t run from it. You’re going to have to play the game regardless.”
With their first playoff game in four years awaiting them, the Seahawks can expect to have cold feet this Sunday. But they vow not to let their body temperature affect the way they perform at Lambeau Field.
“Having been in a cold weather city for a number of years, I must admit I never got used to it,” said head coach Mike Holmgren, who spent seven years as the Packers’ head coach. “I was always cold, but players and teams learn to block out the elements. You can never use that as an excuse. Never.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
