Playoff game vs Kansas City Chiefs is officially coldest game in Miami Dolphins history
The Miami Dolphins on Saturday officially played in the coldest game in franchise history.
The temperature at kickoff for the No. 6 seed Dolphins’ 27-6 loss to the third-seeded Kansas City Chiefs in an AFC wild-card matchup at Arrowhead Stadium: Minus-4 degrees.
When factoring in the wind chill caused by 19 mph winds, the feel-like temperature at kickoff was minus-27 degrees. The National Weather Service described the weather in Kansas City as “dangerously cold,” and a wind chill warning is in effect for Kansas City through Tuesday.
Prior to Saturday, the coldest game the Dolphins played in was on Dec. 21, 2008, also in Kansas City. The temperature at kickoff for that game: 10 degrees.
The coldest playoff game in Dolphins history? A (relatively speaking) slightly chilly 17 degrees in their 2016 wild card game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Saturday night’s game at Arrowhead Stadium was the fourth-coldest postseason game in NFL history and one of five to kickoff in below-zero temperatures.
The other four:
▪ The 1967 NFL Championship, also known as the Ice Bowl between the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field (NFL-record minus-13 degrees with a minus-48 wind chill).
▪ The 1981 AFC Championship between the Cincinnati Bengals and San Diego Chargers in Cincinnati (minus-9 degrees with an NFL-record minus-59 degree wind chill)
▪ A 2015 wild-card round game between the Seattle Seahawks and Minnesota Vikings in Minneapolis (minus-6 degrees with a minus-25 degree wind chill).
Meanwhile, the temperature in Miami on Saturday night was in the upper-60s.
The league kept Saturday night’s Dolphins-Chiefs game on as scheduled even after deciding earlier in the day to postpone the wild-card matchup between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park, New York, from Sunday afternoon to Monday at 4:30 p.m. because of “the ongoing weather emergency in Western New York.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Saturday declared a state of emergency and issued a travel ban for Erie County (which includes Buffalo and Orchard Park) starting at 9 p.m. Saturday. According to the National Weather Service, a winter storm warning is in effect through Sunday night. A lakeshore flood warning and high wind warning have also been issued through Saturday.
A league spokesperson told the Miami Herald that the status of the Dolphins-Chiefs game was unaffected Saturday night because “there are no such travel-related issues that would put public safety at risk or divert resources from local authorities.”
Miami Herald sportswriter Daniel Oyefusi contributed to this report.
