The weather seemed to be a huge topic of conversation during the various news conferences held Wednesday in advance of the New York Giants hosting the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford (1 p.m. ET/FOX). Looking at the forecast for the weekend, I'm not sure why. Sure, it is January in New Jersey.
Sure, it is January in New Jersey. Yes, I know the Falcons play their home games in a Dome. But the forecast calls for a temperature of around 50 on Saturday with little to no chance of precipitation. On Sunday, the high temperature is expected to be in the low 40s with no chance of rain or snow.
Yet, the question kept coming up.
"Do we study it? Well, we talk about it probably every 20 minutes, but we're planning, we're going, we're in the north. You know it's going to happen. We've been really blessed with the weather that we've had," said Giants coach Tom Coughlin. "Sometimes these storms that they're predicting move in early, sometimes late. So we'll wait until the hour, probably, prior to. We talked about it last Saturday night as if it was going to be a really miserable day as well and the wind wasn't the factor that it was predicted to be."
Here is Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan talking about the 'terrible' weather.
"No, having grown up in Philadelphia and having played college in Boston, I have played plenty of terrible weather games so I am not too worried about it," Ryan said.
Atlanta coach Mike Smith was also asked about playing outdoors in the Northeast.
"Matt [Ryan] is from up there in the Northeast and has played a lot of games in the pros and in college in the outdoors even though we play our games indoors. I don't think that is going to be a concern, I think most of our guys are accustomed to playing outside. I would say that we are a mudder team and we are an indoor team," Smith said.
We all know better than to count on any long-range forecast. By Sunday, the weather could be a factor. I guess I just don't understand obsessing about Sunday's forecast on Wednesday.