Anything’s possible, but the impression I get after watching the clip and reading about this is that it would take a mega-storm descending upon Jersey at just the wrong time to make it happen. Anything short of that and they’re going ahead as scheduled, as you’d expect for the biggest TV event of the year. The odds are so slim, in fact, that I’m surprised they even addressed the subject at length. They’re not worried about the quality of play in a snowstorm, or so they claim: Roger Goodell told the media on Wednesday, “We are embracing the weather. Football is played in the elements.” Indeed. The whole reason to play the Super Bowl in a cold climate, in fact, is because you want the elements to affect the game. Not so much that the players are knee-deep in snow and it turns into a battle of two-yard runs from scrimmage, but enough to make things different and interesting. Unless Goodell’s crazy, he’s rooting for snow — light snow, enough to create a singular memory for football fans but not enough to hold Peyton under 20 attempts.
The reason they might conceivably move it is if there’s so much snow on the roads and in the stadium that fans either won’t be able to get to the game or will end up having snowball fights once they’re there. (It’s happened before.) Even then, though, the blizzard would need to be massive and it’d need to strike on Saturday night or Sunday, not a day or two before. The MetLife stadium groundskeeping team managed to clear a foot of snow from the stands and surrounding parking lots earlier this week in just 18 hours, so if a storm descends on Friday, everything should be fine. Christie will have all hands on deck to keep the roads clear too lest his big coup in bringing the game to Jersey turn into a new embarrassment post-Bridgegate. Ask yourself: Exactly how bad would conditions have to be for the NFL to screw with the travel plans of tens of thousands of people, many of whom won’t even be in town until Saturday, to move the game to Friday? The amount of crow that the league would eat for holding the game in a cold climate if they had to move it is so huge that they’ll do virtually anything to avoid it.
Exit question: What happens to the money you bet on the game if it’s moved? Answer here.
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