Everyone knows Buffalo is cold in the winter. But the weather forecast for Sunday’s Ravens-Bills divisional playoff game is calling for it to be colder than cold.

A polar vortex is headed toward western New York, and it’s set to hit early next week. Although the Ravens will be out of there before the worst of it, they will certainly feel the effects.

Even if running back Justice Hill is pretty sure that, after a certain point, cold is just cold.

“I feel like, once the temp is below 30, it’s all the same,” said Hill, who grew up in Oklahoma.

The temperature will be falling below 30. According to Accuweather, the high temperature for Sunday will be 22 degrees. The low is 10, and the Ravens will be playing after sundown — and the “RealFeel” is expected to be 2 degrees in the evening. There is a 25% chance of snow with a prediction of a “coating to an inch.”

That will go on top of the 1-3 inches predicted Saturday.

This season, the Ravens have played a handful of games in the cold. The temperature for their wild-card win over the Steelers was 32. It was 31 degrees for Week 18’s win over the Cleveland Browns.

The Ravens played two other games with temperatures in the 30s, but those were the only two played at freezing temperatures this year.

It will be, according to TruMedia data, the coldest game Lamar Jackson has played in as a pro, although the Ravens quarterback is 3-1 in games when the temperature is at freezing or below, with a solid 109.4 passer rating.

Although players laughed when the polar vortex was mentioned, none was concerned about the weather.

“This is football — I’m pretty sure guys have played in the cold," outside linebacker Malik Harrison said. “As long as we have the heated benches, we’ll be fine.”

Those benches make a big difference, Hill said, compared to when he played in the cold in high school and college. Then, he had to keep moving to stay warm. Now, he has to move around to keep from getting too comfortable on the heated bench.

Harrison also had a few other tricks up his sleeve. Literally. He said he puts Warm Skin, a skin cream, on and covers it with Vaseline.

“That closes my pores, so I’ll be warm,” Harrison said. He also sometimes wears Latex gloves under his football gloves for an extra layer.

The Ravens provide bone broth and hot chocolate to warm players.

Tight end Isaiah Likely might hang out with the Florida boys now, but he grew up in Massachusetts.

“So I know the cold,” Likely said.

His coldest game came well before he became a part of the AFC North in 2022. His junior year of high school, he played in eight inches of snow, he said. Now, he said, he takes advantage of the coats and the heaters every time he’s on the sidelines, but he doesn’t necessarily wear sleeves on the field to stay warm.

“I wear sleeves just when I feel like wearing sleeves,” Likely said. “... This year, I’ve tried not to wear sleeves. It’s more of like how I feel. The cold doesn’t make me wear sleeves.”

Jackson said ahead of the wild card that he believes nobody likes hitting in the cold. Yet Hill said being hit in the cold is pretty much the same, although the ground might be harder. Maybe, he mused, it’s different for those doing the hitting.

A teammate disagreed. “It feels the same,” Harrison said.

There are a lot of factors that go into the outcomes of games, which is why players and coaches always say they focus on controlling what they can control. They can’t control the weather. But they can control how they adapt to it, and they’re determined not to let the cold be a reason they play poorly.

“At the end of day, when you’re between the white lines, both teams don’t care how cold it is, so you really just gotta find what’s good for you, whether it’s putting a whole fur coat under your pads or just going out there no sleeves,” Likely said.

And they’re excited for Jackson to beat the allegations that he can’t play in the cold. He might hate doing it (“I’d rather it not be cold,” he said last week), but that doesn’t mean he can’t do his job.

“It doesn’t matter; I’m ready for any game,” Jackson said before beating the Steelers in freezing temperatures.

The polar vortex will affect Baltimore, as well. According to NPR, it will be one of the farthest-reaching cold air outbreaks of the season. But for Baltimore that means highs will fall from the 40s to the 30s rather than the 30s to the 10s.