ST. PAUL
The Vikings blew it once already.
They had a chance to partner with the University of Minnesota on a new stadium.
They chose to go it alone.
So now they'll be hanging around corridors at the state Legislature, helmet in hand, looking for a handout of several hundred million dollars.
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They will increase their chances of acquiring help in the financing of a new stadium if they agree to play in an open-air stadium.
You can knock about $100 million off the cost of a new facility if you truly make it an outdoor stadium and don't push for a retractable roof.
Besides the savings, an outdoor stadium would benefit the Vikings in games, particularly cold-weather games.
It's no coincidence the Vikings were dominant in December games back when they played at Metropolitan Stadium. Some teams -- the Los Angeles Rams, in particular -- wanted no part of freezing temperatures. It was a competitive advantage for the Vikings, and can be again.
"It psyched out the Rams when we played them," former Vikings coach Bud Grant said. "I don't know if it psyches out anybody anymore."
Actually, it does. Some of the Vikings appeared psyched out last week to learn they had to play in cold weather tonight on a TCF Bank Stadium field they feared could be frozen rock hard.
"Look at these banners," Vikings interim coach Leslie Frazier said, nodding to the franchise's NFL championship banner from 1969 and the three NFC championship banners that hang in the team's indoor practice facility. "That's a testament to home-field advantage. Teams from the West having to come here, they're part of why those banners are up here. It is a home-field advantage."
Then he told a quick story about when he played for the 1985 Chicago Bears and how cold weather helped that team get to the Super Bowl.
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"When we played the Rams in that (NFC) championship game, I can remember (Rams tackle) Jackie Slater coming up to me before the game and saying, 'Man, you guys need to get a dome over this place,' " Frazier said. "Immediately, I knew in pre-game, 'He ain't thinking about winning no football game. He's thinking about the cold.' And it was a cold, cold day in Chicago. So, yes, home-field advantage."
Frazier doesn't know if he will get to keep his job on a more permanent basis but, if he does, he would be just fine with coaching the Vikings in an outdoor stadium with temperatures in single digits, or worse.
"I wouldn't complain. Would not complain," Frazier said. "We won a lot of games in December outdoors. So I would not complain at all."
That's the biggest issue to overcome about playing in an outdoor stadium: Complaints about frosty conditions.
Fans in Green Bay and Chicago embrace it, and fans would do it again here in Minnesota. You just bundle up -- maybe stuff your favorite warming liquid in your parka -- and you're good to go.
And if they played home games outdoors, the Vikings would find it a lot easier to be successful in Green Bay and Chicago and other chilly cities come December because they would be used to it.
When Grant coached the Vikings, he would tell his players about how roads got built in Alaska. Men from the lower 48 states would head up there to do the work, then gripe about the freezing temperatures. Eskimos were hired to do the work. They didn't complain about the cold and the roads got built.
Grant told his players medical tests were done on the Eskimos, and guess what? They didn't have a layer of insulated skin and they didn't possess some special genetic material that made them less sensitive to the cold.
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That tale helped Grant make a point and let his players know the Eskimos could work in the cold because they learned to deal with it.
That was his message to players when it came to playing football in cold weather: Deal with it.
"It was cold," said Chuck Foreman, who played running back on some of Grant's best teams. "But mentally you get ready for it because you know what it's going to be like. It's not a shock to your system. We used to practice outside in it. Bud made you stay out long enough to get acclimated to it."
Build them an outdoor stadium and the Vikings would get acclimated to it. And chances would increase that they would once again get acclimated to winning home playoff games in late December and early January and even return to the Super Bowl, where they haven't been since they left their outdoor stadium.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
