The Broncos are planning to build a new stadium with a retractable roof, to open in 2031. If they already had that roof, the AFC Championship Game would have looked a lot different.
Broncos owner and CEO Greg Penner said that with cold weather and snow in the forecast for Sunday’s game against the Patriots, the Broncos probably would have had the roof closed all day.
“We’re evaluating retractable roof options,” Penner said. “In this case, you all saw the weather this year, it was fantastic until the last game. The NFL does have guidelines or rules around the home teams selecting or choosing what they’re going to do with their roof, and when they can open or close it, so, we’d obviously comply with that. In this case, we would’ve likely closed it ahead of time, given both the temperature and the potential precipitation. That being said, who knows if that would’ve had any outcome on the game. Either way, this would have been more around just what was going to be good for the fans, because it was pretty rough.”
A closed roof might not have changed the winner of the game, but it certainly would have changed the game, as the snow impacted both teams in the second half. A roof would fundamentally change what January football in Denver looks like.
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