Arizona Cardinals will have roof open at UOP Sunday night
By Scott Allen
The Arizona Cardinals play their second of three night home games this season on Sunday night
In the NFL, playing at home is usually the biggest advantage a team can have over their opponent. In the case of the Arizona Cardinals this certainly has held true, especially going back to the 2013 season. One of the biggest reasons? The roof has been closed.
On Sunday Night Football against the Cincinnati Bengals unfortunately this will not be the case. Clearly national television won that battle.
Prior to 2013, I was a big proponent of opening the roof on cooler days in November and December. Why have a retractable roof if you aren’t ever going to open it? The argument has always been there are other events that play there that can use that advantage.
However when the 2013 season started, I began to see the reason why the roof might be better off closed. There were still Sunday’s last season and the season before I thought maybe the roof open wouldn’t be such a bad idea given the weather and given the weakness of the opponent. However when you think about it, when you enclose all that noise, it distracts the opposing team and anytime it stays closed has to be a good thing.
So, the decision was handed down on Saturday that the roof would be open on Sunday night. My best guess is that it was for the national television audience. I get it. People love seeing the Valley of the Sun this time of year and those blimp shots are priceless overlooking the stadium, even in the dark.
Thankfully I don’t think it will deter the Cardinals much on Sunday night. It will still be crazy loud, maybe just a few decibels lower. I can live with that. It is a huge game no doubt but if the Cardinals really need to rely on fan noise to win a football game then they have other issues.
They may have needed the noise in 2013 and late in 2014 but the 2015 version of the Cardinals should be able to rely on talent and performance alone to win big games. For my money, I’d love to see the roof closed but it is what it is. Play ball.