Yikes. The weather forecast for the upcoming New Orleans Saints-Cleveland Browns game on Christmas Eve calls for wind and snow, with a high temperature of just 15 degrees. Weather.com’s 10-day forecast describes the expected conditions as “Windy with occasional snow showers. High near 15 Farenheit. Winds (southwest) at 25 to 40 (miles per hour). Chance of snow 50%. 1 to 3 inches of snow expected. Higher wind gusts possible.”
FirstEnergy Stadium is oriented east-to-west, so while specialists won’t be kicking into the wind there should be a cross-breeze that may push kicks awry. We should also expect both teams to lean heavily on their run game. The Browns have one of the NFL’s best running backs in Nick Chubb (who is averaging 5.0 yards per carry and 89.4 rushing yards per game this season), and the Saints are asking Alvin Kamara to handle the second-highest average of rushing attempts per game (13.7) of his career.
