Will Chiefs-Steelers AFC Divisional Round game be canceled?
By John Buhler
With inclement weather in the Kansas City area, will the Kansas City Chiefs’ AFC Playoff game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday be postponed?
It’s divisional round weekend in the NFC Playoffs. With two games already in the books, one might be in jeopardy of being played this weekend. That’s right. The Kansas City Chiefs’ home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday will be impacted by inclement weather in the Kansas City area. Will the game be postponed?
The NFL released a statement that the divisional round game between the Chiefs and the Steelers will go on according to plan for an 8:20 p.m. ET primetime kickoff at Arrowhead Stadium. Winter storms in Kansas City on Saturday night had the initial 1:05 p.m. ET pushed back to the available primetime slot.
Obviously this game will not be cancelled because of it is a playoff game with Super Bowl implications. However should this game be pushed back past Sunday, it will need to be played as soon as Monday night, even if that means at a neutral site.
NBC will be in the booth for essentially playoff Sunday Night Football. Barring any concerns over safety for the fans traveling to the game, it will be played on Sunday night. So does this 8:20 p.m. ET start time impact the game one way or another?
By moving the game back to 8:20 p.m. ET, it gives the Chiefs a better home-field advantage than it would have had at a 1:05 p.m. ET start time. This will allow more time for Chiefs fans to pack Arrowhead and get fired up for this game.
Since the AFC playoff game will be played in poor conditions, it will end up hurting the better of the two quarterbacks. The weather will negatively impact Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers passing game more than Alex Smith and the Chiefs conservative air attack.
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Pittsburgh will need to furiously pound the rock with running back Le’Veon Bell. However, the Arrowhead crowd noise heavily favors Kansas City in run defense.