Steelers prepare for perhaps unprecedented cold, snowy, windy conditions against Bills
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Born and raised in Arizona and after a college career at Alabama, Levi Wallace wasn’t so much thrown into the fire in the NFL as he was thrown into an icebox.
Wallace spent his first four seasons with the Buffalo Bills.
Now in his second season with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Wallace quickly has come to know cold-weather football. And he’s here to tell you that, yes, despite popular opinion, it’s just as frigid for the players on the field as it is anyone else in the stadium.
“It’s cold for everybody — and we have less on than everyone else!” Wallace said after Friday’s practice. “Everyone thinks because we’re moving around, we’re a lot warmer — that’s not the case. It’s cold out there.”
It certainly will be cold — and quite snowy — when his current team plays his former team in a wild-card playoff game Sunday in Orchard Park, N.Y. While forecasts have varied and evolved throughout the week, predictions for 1 to 3 feet of snow repeatedly have been reported for Western New York over Saturday and Sunday. Perhaps worse yet, so have steady winds over 25 mph with gusts projected to possibly reach 60 mph.
“It’s cold and it’s windy — so it’s the best of both worlds,” Wallace said with a straight face, his deadpan palpable. “Plus it might snow, so it should be a fun game.
“If you see (players) standing around heaters for as long as they can right before they have to get back on the field, know it’s because you want to be as warm and as loose as you can be.”
In an effort to prepare his team as best as he could, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin elected to practice outdoors Wednesday and Thursday. But that was with no snow and little wind. It’s virtually impossible to replicate what the Steelers could encounter Sunday.
“As long as the conditions are the same for both teams,” Tomlin said, “I’m not overly concerned about it.”
They say a team takes on the personality of its head coach. The Steelers, in this instance, certainly have parroted Tomlin’s mindset.
“We are not really paying that too much of a mind of how the weather can affect the game,” cornerback Patrick Peterson said.
Said inside linebacker Elandon Roberts: “Both teams prepare for it, right? We know the circumstances. Playoff football. The only way you aren’t playing in that kind of weather this time of year is if you’re playing (in a dome) or you’re in the South.”
Added left tackle Dan Moore Jr.: “Really, there’s no preparing. It’s just kind of mentally. Get yourself in that mentality, and make a decision that you are not going to let it affect you.”
Perhaps that works in regards to overall mindset in approaching a playoff game in nasty weather. But what about the more tangible parts of preparation? After all, if this type of weather doesn’t affect a gameplan, what could?
“Like Coach T always says, ‘Weather doesn’t irritate running the ball,’ ” right tackle Broderick Jones said. “So if we are able to run the ball at an efficient pace and keep that going, we should be all right.
“The emphasis of the meetings that we have been having are on running the football, and I think everybody has bought in.”
That’s exactly what the Steelers did during a snowstorm in Orchard Park on Dec. 11, 2016, riding running back Le’Veon Bell via 38 carries for 236 yards and three touchdowns in a 27-20 victory.
Najee Harris has had more carries over the past two games (53) than during any two-game stretch of his career. Adding 1A running back Jaylen Warren, the Steelers have gotten 75 carries for 353 yards and four touchdowns from their running backs the past two weeks. Last week was during a driving rain in Baltimore.
Expect more of the same in the snow.
“It’s gonna be a dirty game,” tight end/fullback Connor Heyward said. “One of those games where your mental toughness is tested.”
Asked about the Steelers’ collective approach to the horrid weather they’re prepping to play in, All-Pro Steelers special teamer Miles Killebrew echoed one of the more ubiquitous Tomlinisms.
“Smile in the face of it,” Killebrew said. “To go out there and say, ‘It’s windy for both of us, it’s cold for both of us — but it affects us less than you. Let’s go.’ ”
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