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Three games so far this weekend and all are in domes. It seems that the noise factor of playing in a dome has replaced cold weather as the ultimate home field advantage. In addition the rule changes and point of emphasis dicates that encourage the passing game (roughing the passer, no contact beyond five yards, any contact to a QB's head, no contact with a defenseless receiver, etc.) are all of more benefit to a team constructed to take advantage of playing indoors than they are to the strong defense/strong running game that is the strategy most cold-weather teams employ.
It used to be just a few years ago that the common wisdom was that speed/finesse teams built to take advantage of playing in a dome would never win a championship because they would fade when having to play outdoors late in the season and in the playoffs. That theory gets thrown out the window when teams wrap up a top seed early, and never play outdoors in the playoffs. That was a knock on warm weather teams like the Dolphins and Bucs for a long time, that they would fold once they had to play on the road in December and January.
My question is this: is this a one-year blip on the screen, or will the NFL playoffs primarily feature dome and warm-weather teams going forward? Is the concept of building a physical team featuring a strong running game in order to deal with bad late-season weather an outdated philosophy?
It used to be just a few years ago that the common wisdom was that speed/finesse teams built to take advantage of playing in a dome would never win a championship because they would fade when having to play outdoors late in the season and in the playoffs. That theory gets thrown out the window when teams wrap up a top seed early, and never play outdoors in the playoffs. That was a knock on warm weather teams like the Dolphins and Bucs for a long time, that they would fold once they had to play on the road in December and January.
My question is this: is this a one-year blip on the screen, or will the NFL playoffs primarily feature dome and warm-weather teams going forward? Is the concept of building a physical team featuring a strong running game in order to deal with bad late-season weather an outdated philosophy?
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