Browns not worrying about Christmas Eve temperatures against Saints
BEREA − David Njoku was quick to correct the questioner.
“I’m not from South Florida,” Njoku said Tuesday. “I was born in (New) Jersey so I am used to the cold. However, that doesn’t mean I like the cold.”
The Browns tight end has a funny way to show that’s the case. Or, really, the case with regards to any kind of weather conditions.
It could be a mid-August preseason game in the upper 80s or, as is expected be the case Saturday when they play host to the New Orleans Saints, it could a late-December game played in single-digit temperatures and sub-zero wind chills. Regardless, Njoku will be out on the field for early pregame warmups shirtless.
“It is more like a mentality thing,” Njoku said. “On gameday, I feel nothing.”
One feels nothing when they have frostbite, also. That’s a different story, through.
Cold weather is something one expects to see when they play in Cleveland in December. However, there is cold and then there’s the artic blast coming this weekend.
According to Accuweather.com, the high temperature on Saturday is going to be 16 degrees, although the “real feel” will be minus-12. On top of that, the forecast is calling for winds out of the southwest at 29 miles-per-hour, gusting up to 61 miles-per-hour.
“It is what it is,” running back Nick Chubb said. “Can’t do anything about it. We are preparing for whatever so we will be ready.”
So, how exactly, does one get ready to play in sub-zero wind chills and high winds?
“I guess you really can’t honestly,” Chubb said. “It is what it is. Can’t do anything about it.”
What it could do more than anything else is open the door for the Browns to lean heavily on their running game. That is, depending on the availability of Chubb.
The league’s third-leading rusher with 1,252 yards, Chubb did not practice on Wednesday due to a foot injury he suffered late in last Saturday’s win over Baltimore. Coach Kevin Stefanski merely gave a “hope so” when asked if the running back would play against the Saints.
Chubb gave no indication of the injury when he spoke to reporters roughly an hour before it was announced he wouldn’t practice. In fact, he talked about why he doesn’t take “veterans’ rest days” and shows up to practice every day.
“I just feel like what I do in a game that I need to do it during the week, so that’s a big part of me,” Chubb said. “But everyone’s different. Everyone works through injuries or are hurt in different ways, and however you feel you need to take it to get to gameday, that’s what you should do.”
Getting to Cleveland is something the Saints have had to worry about this week. With a forecast calling for three-to-six inches of snow in Greater Cleveland on Friday, which typically would be a travel day, they announced Tuesday they would be departing for Ohio a day earlier on Thursday.
There’s no significant snowfall in the forecast for during the game. The snow is expected to stop around 7 a.m. Saturday, although it’s supposed to start again around 7 p.m. that night.
Snow was part of the winter weather the Browns dealt with last Saturday evening in their key AFC North win over the Baltimore Ravens. The game kicked off at 32 degrees with a wind chill of 23, and ended with snow whipping around the stadium.
Those conditions, though, weren’t as much of a concern to the Browns as what Ravens running backs J.K. Dobbins or Gus Edwards were doing running the ball, or how they were going to keep Roquan Smith or Calais Campbell out of their backfield. The same will hold true this Saturday, where the focus will be on slowing down Saints running back Alvin Kamara and rookie receiver Chris Olave, or blocking defensive end Cameron Jordan.
“I don’t think the weather’s the challenge,” cornerback Denzel Ward said. “I think it’s more so the team trying to beat us and the receivers and quarterbacks and everything, so that that’s more so our focus is focus on the task at hand and that’s going against the Saints and the difficulties they may bring. So I don’t think the weather will be a big issue.”
The argument could be made the weather may actually benefit the Browns. After all, the Saints aren’t just a deep-South team, they’re a deep-South team that plays their home game indoors.
Then again, even for a team like Browns, who play their home games in the conditions outdoors, it’s not like the kind of temperatures being called for on Saturday aren’t run-of-the-mill even for late December in Northeast Ohio. Regardless, it’s something that both teams are going to have to handle.
“Weather is a variable that we all deal with,” Stefanski said. “Obviously, we deal with it at home. Similar conversation prior to the Buffalo game (in November) when we didn’t know if we were playing there. There are always things that you take into consideration, but until you get down there and understand what the elements are, you have to wait until that becomes apparent.”
Contact Chris at [email protected].
On Twitter: @ceasterlingABJ
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