by Weather games are synonymous with professional football.
For whatever reason, if you say that most over the years automatically jump to winter and January in Green Bay or some other frigid state with legendary games like the Ice Bowl at Lambeau Field or the Freezer Bowl at the old Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, where the wind is cold, it was reported at minus-59 at one point.
The most recent example of a weather game in Philadelphia is Shady McCoy’s dominance of Detroit’s famous “Snow Bowl” route during the 2013 season.
Few equate extreme heat with “weather games,” but that’s exactly what the Eagles’ 33-16 loss to Tampa Bay was, with temperatures soaring into the mid-90s and a heat index reaching 110 on the field as due to the oppressive humidity in the environment. after Hurricane Helene.
Both teams had to play in it, but common sense says that whoever spends more time in the climate is better prepared for it, just like those Packers have an edge over the Miami Dolphins coming to Titletown late in the season.
Safety Reed Blankenship, defensive tackle Jalen Carter, center Cam Jurgens and cornerback Darius Slay were among the Eagles players who had issues with the conditions. Jurgens and Carter were specially sent to the locker room for IV drips to treat cramps.
‘Gassed is not the right word. We lost a lot of fuel, man,” safety CJ Gardner-Johnson said after the game. “That is something we have to prepare for at a training level. We did everything we could, but the heat got the better of us today.
“Obviously, that team came out and played their game. Great honor for Tampa.”
Gardner-Johnson is no stranger to extreme heat. He is from the Sunshine State and played his college ball at the University of Florida.
The Bucs are also the perfect team to explore this idea further. An expansion team in 1976, Tampa Bay didn’t even win a game in temperatures below 40 degrees for 26 years, losing 21 straight before winning in Chicago in Week 17 of the 2002 season.
Unfortunately for Eagles fans, the Bucs made it two in a row a few weeks later in the 2003 NFC Championship Game in Philadelphia.
Conversely, Tampa is much better at handling the heat than most northern “weather” cities like Philadelphia.
In August 2022, the Eagles traveled to Miami for what turned out to be a joint workout in the stifling heat and humidity of South Florida.
Famous for “winning” joint workouts in the Nick Sirianni era, the Eagles were crushed that day after Miami emerged from stretching on the indoor, air-conditioned practice field of the Baptist Health Training Complex, ready to take on a team from Philadelphia to greet that was undermined. energy in sunlight.
There are bigger reasons the Eagles are on the run in Tampa, starting with the absences of AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith and Lane Johnson, but don’t ignore the weather.
“The heat got to us today,” Gardner-Johnson said. “Shoutout to Hurricane Helene. She left the aftermath behind. That’s not something you can prepare for.
“You can take as many IVs as you want and do what you need to do. But it’s one of those games where you have to stay hydrated and keep going.
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