As Titans coach Mike Munchak prepares to face Peyton Manning and the Broncos on Sunday, he thinks the Titans’ chances get better as the weather gets colder. And it’s long been said that Manning freezes on cold days.
But Manning doesn’t see it that way. When the idea that Manning struggles in cold weather was brought up on Wednesday, Manning quickly dismissed it.
“That’s not how I feel,” Manning said, via USA Today.
Manning’s teams have a 3-7 record in the 10 games he has played in freezing weather, but then again, most of those games were on the road against playoff opposition. It’s hard to win on the road in the playoffs whether it’s warm or cold, indoors or out.
The two most recent of those losses were the home game against the Ravens in last season’s playoffs, and the road loss at New England two weeks ago. Broncos coach John Fox noted that those were both overtime games that could have gone either way.
“If we won those games, we wouldn’t be talking about weather right now. And we could have easily won either one of those games,” Fox said.
Unfortunately for Fox and Manning, they didn’t win either of those games. The good news for Manning is that this postseason, he has an opportunity to put to bed any talk that he can’t win in the cold, if the Broncos win two cold-weather playoff games and follow that by winning the first-ever cold-weather Super Bowl.