Trek from sunny Miami no picnic for Dolphins to face Steelers in frigid Pittsburgh

It should not come as a surprise that the weather leading up to and during the “Monday Night Football” game was significantly more a topic of discussion – and consternation – for the team from South Florida than the team headquartered in southwestern Pennsylvania.

It had been known throughout the past week that temperatures were forecasted to be frigid for Monday’s game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Miami Dolphins. It became apparent soon thereafter that a winter storm dumping up to a half foot of snow would hit the greater Pittsburgh region two days before kickoff.

But while for the Steelers that’s simply an annual reality of late-season NFL football, for the visitors the weather was much more of note.

“I think you adjust for what players are able to execute,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said. “So if the surface of the ground is a certain way, you adjust. If there’s a lot of wind, you adjust. If people are struggling to possess the ball, (you adjust).

“I’ve been in cold, non-precipitation games where the guys are very adept at handling the ball. I’ve been in cold ones where the ball is hard to grip.”

As McDaniel spoke early Saturday from the team’s practice facility, the temperature outside in Miami Gardens, Fla., was well over 70 degrees.

Hours later, after the team took a chartered flight to Pittsburgh, it went through a walkthrough practice at Robert Morris University – in the thick of the snowstorm.

Practice up north ???? pic.twitter.com/thIsPNy1Vk

— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) December 14, 2025

McDaniel claimed the decision to practice in Pennsylvania – outdoors, no less, when indoor facilities were surely an option – was made well before the season started and implied it had nothing to do with the forecast.

Hello from the Steel City ????❄️ pic.twitter.com/wxiR42AKJ3

— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) December 14, 2025

Regardless, Dolphins coaches and staffers took advantage of the opportunity to better acclimate the team for what they were to face Monday.

“Our (equipment manager), Joe (Cimino), he is on top of everything,” Dolphins special teams coordinator Craig Aukerman said. “So in the equipment room what I do when I get there, I go pretty much immediately to the equipment room and Joe has got things up there. He’s looking if it’s going to rain, if it’s going to snow, the wind gust, all of that. He’s the guy that… three or four days before the game (is asking), ‘What’s the weather going to be like?’ We all know weather changes a bunch. So it’s like what’s it during game time, can we prepare our guys during the course of the week?”

Dolphins safety Minkah Fitzpatrick played the past six seasons for the Steelers, and he went to high school in New Jersey. Fitzpatrick knows northern weather as well as anybody on the Dolphins roster. He was in agreement with Aukerman that frigid temperatures – it was 17 degrees at kickoff Monday – are not what is potentially most troublesome to a football team.

“I really don’t think the cold affects the game as much as rain or snow,” Fitzpatrick said.

Perhaps because his units rely on long kicks – be them kickoffs, placekicks or punts – Aukerman is most concerned with wind.

“I usually get there (to the stadium) four hours before kickoff,” Aukerman said, “and I look at the field aspect. How’s the field looking – and then I’m looking for the wind gust. Which way is the wind? Is it coming off the rivers – the three rivers.”

Wind wasn’t much of an issue Monday night. According to Accuweather, during the first half the measured wind gusts were at a mere 4 mph.

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t an adjustment for a team more accustomed to the white sand of South Beach than the coating of white snow that blanketed much of Pittsburgh during their 48-plus hours here.

After all, entering the game Miami as a franchise had lost its past 12 when the gametime temperature was under 40 degrees. Seven of those chilly defeats came with McDaniel as coach.

But whatever problems the Dolphins have in the cold, it’s not due to a lack of appropriate mindset.

“I think the biggest thing,” McDaniel said of playing in the elements, “is being a team that can adjust to any environment considering both teams are playing in the same environment. Your objective is to be the best team in the stadium on that day and nothing else.”