At one point during the Carolina-Panthers-Minnesota Vikings tussle on Sunday, the FOX broadcast showed the wind chill at TFC Bank Stadium to be -7 degrees.
That type of freezing turns nearly everything rock hard.
During the game, cameras showed sideline attendants using heaters to warm frozen footballs. It was likely these attendants meant well, just trying to soften the balls a bit; however, that's a no-no.
"Yeah, you can't do anything with the footballs in terms of any artificial, whether you're heating them up, whether it's a regular game ball or kicking ball, you can't do anything to the football," Blandino said. "So that was noticed during the game, both teams were made aware of it during the game and we will certainly remind the clubs as we get into more cold weather games that you can't do anything with the football in terms of heating them up with those sideline heaters."
As the temperature continues to drop as we enter December, the message has been sent to all teams not to mess with the footballs -- no matter how freezing they become.
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