MIAMI GARDENS — The Miami Dolphins are practicing with wet footballs this week.
For good reason.
The forecast for Cleveland this weekend calls for the most trying conditions the Dolphins have faced thus far this season. (As if the offense didn’t have enough of its hands, facing a Cleveland defense ranked third in the league.)
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Game-time temperatures Sunday afternoon should be around 55 degrees.
Sounds good so far.
But:
Winds out of the southwest are forecast to be 20 to 30 mph.
Rain chance: 100 percent.
The Dolphins began preparing for the weather with special teams coordinator Craig Aukerman bringing water bottles handy to practice to keep footballs wet.
“We’ve got to make it somewhat similar,” Aukerman said.
Of course, there’s only so much coaches can do, especially in South Florida.
“We can’t have a bunch of people blowing the wind and stuff like that,” Aukerman said.
Aukerman plans to bring out the specialists early to warm up before the game so they can gather information and relay it to coach Mike McDaniel to assist in his decision-making.
“That’s going to be the biggest thing, having those guys out there early understanding which way the wind is at a left to right, right to left or is it going to be on your back?” Aukerman said. “Is it going to be towards you? And those are the things that we’ll have an open dialogue with the kicker and the punter myself, and Mike, because there’s a lot of things that could happen: ‘Hey, Mike, we might not be able to kick a 55-yard field goal here into the wind. Hey, Mike, it’s got a really strong left to right wind. We might need it on this hash at this certain time.’ So that’ll be an open dialogue. ”
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Dolphins to face rainy, very windy conditions in Cleveland
Reporting by Hal Habib, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
