The View From Here

There was the Dead Ball Era in baseball. Then the Steroid Era. In hockey, there were the goal-happy 80s, which were destroyed by the New Jersey Devils and the Left Wing Lock. In basketball, the death of the hand-check fit right into David Stern’s Superstar Scheme.

Such a change just happened in the NFL.

A lot of people will discount the league awarding the 2014 Super Bowl to New York/New Jersey, the first outdoor cold-weather Super Bowl in history. But history will call this game the end of the five-wide era, the death of the dome team and the end of the quarterback as Super Bowl MVP.

Make no mistake, this will not be the only cold-weather Super Bowl. The seal is broken, and with a big fat precedent to argue behind, the deep pockets and shrewd business minds of Washington’s Dan Snyder, Philadelphia’s Jeffrey Lurie and New England’s Robert Kraft are going to all say, "Why Not Us?" The nicest stadiums outside of Dallas are in Green Bay, New England, Philadelphia, New Jersey and Baltimore, and Snyder can always get a bucket of patriotic crocodile tears about holding America’s greatest game in the nation’s capital. Not to mention the fact that New Meadowlands will probably become a regular host, unless there’s 30 feet of snow on the ground and no one watches.

Everything changes.

Home-field advantage in the NFL also dictates what a team is used to. Playing a dome team in a dome means dealing with a fast track and no fear of the elements. Playing outdoors in the North means dealing with frozen tundras. So what’s the difference? Teams like Indianapolis, New Orleans, Minnesota and Arizona have all built perennial contenders in recent history by installing high-octane

passing attacks. Whereas Pittsburgh, Green Bay and Chicago were historically built on running games and defense, although, hilariously, all three have become pass-first teams. Why? Because all three knew that if they made it to a Super Bowl, the downhill running, too-cold-to-tackle-me stuff was going to be replaced by a shootout. If the big game is played in the elements, it’s going to be the latter kind that has the advantage; the shootout is going to become a power game. Suddenly, teams like Baltimore, Tennessee, Miami and the Jets, all playoff contenders, don’t have to worry about their running games becoming irrelevant in the last game of the season. On the contrary; the Colts and Saints, who should both be Super Bowl contenders this season, have to worry about running into a grinder team.

Warm weather favors quarterbacks. Only Brett Favre is better in the elements than when it's 75 and sunny. So it shouldn’t be surprising that of the 44 Super Bowl MVPs, 23 have been quarterbacks. In the last 20 years, only three running backs (Ottis Anderson, Terrell Davis and Emmitt Smith) have won it. Look for that number to go up after they become more necessary in the cold.

Now, this isn’t taking place for another four years, but the wheels are in motion, and smart teams plan for the future. Starting in 2011, a first-round pick of a fullback might not be worthy of a boo.