On Wall Street, a "Triple Witching Hour" occurs four times a year — on the last hour of trading on the third Friday of March, June, September, and December, when contracts for stock options, stock index options, and stock index futures, all expire concomitantly.
A "Triple Witching Hour" also exists in the NFL — when a team that plays their home games in a domed stadium has to play outdoors, on natural grass, and in cold weather (that's on the road at a northern, outdoor venue in November or later, for those of you in Rio Linda, West Palm Beach and Staten Island), all in the same game (except for the Raiders who, despite playing their home games indoors, also play them on natural grass).
On Saturday, the Texans, 0-5 lifetime in the "Elite Eight" going into their AFC divisional playoff game at Kansas City, where the kickoff-time temperature was 26 degrees, with a wind chill of 8 — now that's "a visitor in cold weather!" — made it 0-6 with a 23-14 loss, with Harrison Butker, who is such a patriot that he should be playing for New England, contributing three field goals for the Chiefs.
Meanwhile, the cavalcade of penalties against Houston continued: the Texans were flagged eight times for 82 yards, while the Chiefs were penalized four times for just 29 yards (sound familiar?).
The Texans also became the first team in NFL postseason history to outgain an opponent by more than 100 yards (336 to 212), have no turnovers (Kansas City didn't have any either) — and still lose, dropping the Texans to 3-10 straight up and 2-10-1 against the spread in "Triple Witching Hour" games since 2016, the year the playing surface at NRG Stadium was switched from natural grass to artificial turf.
(In the "17-game era" — that is to say, from 2021 to the present — the Texans have played 36 home games, playoffs included, and the retractable roof at NRG Stadium was closed in 34 of them. Still, close enough.)
The following day, the Rams were greeted by challenging weather conditions of a different sort — freezing rain mixed with sleet and snow, which changed over to all snow about 40 minutes into the game. Moreover, unfortunately for them, Saquon Barkley, who had run for 255 yards in a game played at Los Angeles on November 24 (won by the Eagles 37-20) dashed through the snow (no one-horse open sleigh involved) for 205 yards as Philadelphia won again, 28-22. The Rams are now 17-30 in cold-weather games (as defined previously) since 1992 — and dating back to when the first such game was played in 1950, warm-weather and indoor teams are now 44-111 at cold-weather venues, a .284 winning percentage.
With the postseason getting steadily pushed back by the extensions of both the regular season and the postseason (in 1976, the conference championship games were played on December 26 — exactly one month before this year's conference title games will be played), we can expect to see more and playoff games in which the road team is "a visitor in cold weather" — especially once the regular season is lengthened to 18 games and each team is given a second bye week.
Brrrrr!
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