Dec. 9, 2013. It is a date frozen in Jason Witten's memory.
"It's the coldest game I've played in my career," said the Cowboys' tight end. "You know it's pretty bad when the offensive lineman are under the covers on the sidelines."
A gametime temperature of 8 degrees at Soldier Field with a windchill of -9 degrees.
"You had all these different ways to kind of keep your hands warm and I'm sure all of our players have some of that element to them you know when you do play in cold weather just how do you keep yourself ready to go based on the conditions, so it's a very important thing. You got to be ready," Cowboys' head coach Jason Garrett said.
To that end, Garrett moved practice outside Monday. The good news: forecasts for Chicago on Thursday have temperatures in the 40's with only a 10% chance of rain. But Chicago isn't called the "Windy City" for nothing.
"When it's windy, the trajectory of the ball can move and stuff like that," Cowboys' wide receiver Amari Cooper said. "You just have to focus more. I think the worst thing is the rain though, just to be completely candid because it's just hard to catch the ball."
It's also hard to throw it. Dak Prescott got in extra practice with gloves, just in case the skies open up the way they did in New England.
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"Definitely about precipitation," Prescott said. "Not something I'll do with it just being cold. My hands are fine. I'll keep my hands warm, keep the blood in them, got the hand warmers and all that. Got it with the jersey, won't have problems with that, but the glove, yeah, when it gets wet it's a lot of benefit."
"Get your mind right. Practice in it. Do those different things that are going to allow you to do wet ball drills, do all that kind of stuff and go find a way to win," Witten said. "But that was not a good night in Chicago a few years back."
