Bear Digest

Bear weather making a return for Sunday playoff game against Rams

The Bears play the Rams on Sunday and weather forecasts say it will be a temperature entirely unfamiliar to many of the L.A. players.
Gene Chamberlain|
Wilber Marshall returns a fumble by Dieter Brock 52 yards for a touchdown against the Rams as Eric Dickerson gives chase in the game that put the Bears in the Super Bowl in 1985.
Wilber Marshall returns a fumble by Dieter Brock 52 yards for a touchdown against the Rams as Eric Dickerson gives chase in the game that put the Bears in the Super Bowl in 1985. | Malcolm Emmons-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The Rams are coming to Soldier Field Sunday and the kickoff time will be announced after Monday night's AFC playoff between Houston and Pittsburgh.

It's the first Rams trip to Soldier Field in postseason since 1985 and they can expect they won't receive a warm welcome, both figuratively and literally.

So-called "Bear weather" is a myth left over from the Mike Ditka era and largely disproven. It says the Bears love the cold against warm-weather teams.

Still, you have to like the idea of an indoor team from Los Angeles coming to Soldier Field in mid-January to play a team accustomed to cold weather games, especially if it's extremely cold.

Video of the Rams coming in to face the 1985 world champion Bears team in the NFC Championship Game, and getting thoroughly flattened 24-0, is often replayed on social media and Youtube.

Bear weather is set to make its return for the Rams playoff game.

The temperature forecast from Weather.com for  the city on Sunday is 17 degrees for a high. It's the coldest it's expected to be on any day in the 10-day forecast.

The coldest weather these Rams have played in this season is 45 degrees in Charlotte, N.C. Nov. 30, a game the Panthers won 31-28. The temperature was much warmer Saturday for the playoff game between those teams won by the Rams, at 72 degrees.

The Rams haven't played in game time air temperatures less than 20 degrees since they played the Packers Dec. 19, 2022 and lost 24-12 at Lambeau Field.  Last year they did win 19-9 over the struggling Jets in 23-degree weather with a 14-degree wind chill on Dec. 22.

Then they lost in the playoffs to the Eagles 28-22 in 34-degree weather with a 27-degree wind chill.

Since Matthew Stafford took over as Rams quarterback in 2021 after the trade  from Detroit, the Rams are 1-2 when game time air temperature is 35 degrees or cooler. They've only played in two games with game-time air temperature below freezing.

The Bear weather idea might be a myth because the Bears lost the 1988 NFC Championship in brutal cold and wind chill to San Francisco at Soldier Field and lost a home playoff game to the Panthers in 2005.

Nevertheless, there are those old images of Mike Singletary stone-walling Eric Dickerson and Wilber Marshall scooping up the football knocked loose from Dieter Brock by Richard Dent and scoring the clinching touchdown in front of a howling Soldier Field crowd in 1985.

Could something similar be coming on Sunday?

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.