Icy winds create tricky conditions for NFL kickers

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Cold, wind and frozen turf. They make Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field and Chicago’s Soldier Field such forbidding places.

Both natural grass fields will be front and center Sunday when the New York Jets play the Steelers in the AFC championship game, and the Green Bay Packers take on the Bears in the NFC championship game, with Super Bowl spots on the line.

And it could all come down to how the kickers deal with the less-than-ideal conditions.

“I think that’s what’s going to happen,” Jets coach Rex Ryan said of his team’s big game. “I think that this is going to be one of those games. I don’t see a team blowing the other team out. I think this is going to be hard-fought all the way to the end and will probably be a three-point game.”

That’s why Nick Folk is bringing several pairs of cleats with him to Pittsburgh and taking extra kicks before the game.

Sunday’s weather forecast calls for morning snow showers and bone-chilling temperatures of about 13 degrees at kickoff.

“Everything about kicking at Heinz Field makes it tough,” Folk said. “The fans, the weather can turn nasty at any time, the field can be pretty bad, too.”

But there might be some good news for Folk and the Steelers’ Shaun Suisham, according to meteorologist Brad Rehak of the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh.

Rehak, a Steelers season-ticket holder, said the winds usually come down the Ohio River and into the stadium, but the current weather pattern doesn’t indicate that flow.

“When you’re playing football this late in the year, outdoors, it is what you’d think it would be,” Suisham said. “I think that’s part of what’s fun of being part of this organization. I love playing on this kind of field. It’s part of playing football this time of year and in this part of the country.”

Soldier Field, sitting next to Lake Michigan, has a similar reputation.

After being re-sodded before the regular-season finale in 2006, the Bears slipped and slid to a 39-14 victory in the NFC championship over New Orleans, which fumbled four times and lost three.

Earlier this week, Green Bay wide receiver Greg Jennings was critical of Soldier Field after watching Seattle players slip in the snow in the Seahawks’ playoff loss last weekend.

“It’s rough,” he said. “It’s probably one of the worst — probably the worst — in the league.”