What is the coldest game in NFL history?

It’s going to be a bitterly cold weekend in many parts of the US just as the NFL divisional round gets underway. According to forecasts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), temperatures in Chicago will hit a low of around -2° F when the Bears host the Rams at Soldier Field on Sunday. And it’s going to be a blustery evening with frigid wind chills expected off of Lake Michigan.

Sub-zero football

If the forecasts are correct, the Rams vs Bears game will be one of the coldest on record in NFL but far from the chilliest. Several NFL games have been played when temperatures have slipped below zero. The 2007 NFC Championship game between the New York Giants and the Green Bay Packers on Jan. 20, 2008 at Lambeau Field at the time was the second coldest game ever to be played in Green Bay. It kicked off with the thermometer reading -1° C with a wind chill factor of -23.

Giants coach Tom Coughlin recalled, “I thought my ears were going to fall off - pregame… I’m out there and I’m going, ‘This is a mistake’”. In arctic conditions and on a playing field that was icy cold and rock solid, the Giants prevailed 23-20 to secure their place at Super Bowl XLII against the Patriots in the slightly more pleasant climes of Arizona.

NFL comes in from the cold

The coldest NFL game in history had taken place 40 years previously, also at Lambeau. The 1967 NFL Championship Game between the Packers and the Cowboys was played on New Year’s Eve 1967 with conditions in Wisconsin as bleak as anyone could have imagined. Ahead of the 1 p.m. kickoff, the temperature reading was −15 °F with a wind chill of around −48 °F.

It was particularly brutal for referee Norm Schachter, who had flown in from Los Angeles to oversee the game. His only protection against the cold, three pairs of socks, two sweatshirts and “one of those plastic bags you get from the cleaners”. And even worse for umpire Joe Connell - his small metal whistle had frozen hard onto his lips and he ended up taking a chunk of skin and flesh off when he prised it away. “After that, we just yelled at the players to stop and go...” Schachter recalled.

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Vince Lombardi’s Packers ended up defeating the Cowboys, 21-17 to clinch an historic third consecutive NFL championship in a game that became infamously known as the Ice Bowl.

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