Preparing for the cold

While the New York Giants were practicing outdoors this week, the Green Bay Packers were practicing indoors, but there was one difference. The Packers were using frozen footballs all week long.

According to the Green Bay Press-Gazette's Pete Dougherty, "(Packers head coach Mike) McCarthy said he got the idea from the common NFL practice of preparing for rain games by dipping the ball in a bucket of water before each play in practice, something many NFL teams do occasionally during the season. Instead, McCarthy had the balls placed in a portable freezer at practice, and on each play during team drills, the equipment men grabbed a ball from freezer to try to simulate what it will be like throwing, catching and handing off the ball Sunday in the NFC championship game at an arctic-like Lambeau Field."

McCarthy reportedly didn't even tell the team, he just started using the balls on Wednesday and has kept using them ever since.

The biggest challenges apparently were the center to quarterback shotgun snap exchange and the receivers simply catching the football. But from all indications, the idea seemed to work well.

"They never told us that the balls were coming out of the freezer, we just kind just felt it as we caught it, 'Wow, the balls are cold,'" receiver Donald Driver told the Press-Gazette. "We thought most likely the balls had been outside all day, but they were in the freezer. They were kind of slippery. Mostly, I think it's for concentration, because when it's warm weather, you basically don't have to concentrate too much on the ball. Basically, if you've got good hands, you're going to catch. But I don't care how good your hands are, in cold weather, you have to focus on the ball and make sure you catch it before you run with it."