Bears and Bills Fight the Cold

It was so cold Saturday in the 35-13 loss by the Bears at Soldier Field that linebacker Nick Morrow was still feeling it 30 minutes after the game.

"As you're playing I don't even think you feel it," Morrow said. "On the sideline, oh my goodness. I'm still shivering."

The temperature at kickoff was 9 degrees and wind chill was minus-12 degrees. The temperature didn't even crack the top 10 for coldest Bears games of all time for those recorded, but the wind chill did. It was seventh coldest wind chill and it was fourth coldest for a Bears game at Soldier Field.

"I didn't even wear sleeves, so I'm trying to thaw out," Morrow said. "The biggest thing for me is maybe your hands. Your hands are a little numb, maybe they tingle a little bit toward the end.

"Other than that, I don't reall feel any difference."

That would be plenty of difference for most people.

Cornerback Kyler Gordon tried to turn it to an advantage rather than suffering.

"My mindset when you're going into something like this, to me it's like an advantage because no one really wants to play in this," Gordon said.

However, the Bears were playing the Bills. In Buffalo, this is called a regular Sunday.

"That's true," Gordon, said, laughing.

Actually, the Bills were affected by it, too. QB Josh Allen confirmed it. But like any good Buffalo player would, he said ht wasn't 9 degrees but the wind that was the problem. At kickoff it was 21-26 mph with gusts of 37 mph.

"Yeah, it's not so much the cold as it was the wind," he said. "Like I said, it just gusts. You don't know really where it's coming from. Sometimes the flags are blowing one way, the next they're blowing the opposite way."

Bills kicker Tyler Bates found it out on the first extra point he tried as a huge gust came up and his kick went sailing well to the right.

The Bills threw for 172 yards, their second-lowest total of the year, while the Bears had 144 yards passing. Running was much easier to accomplish in these conditions, and Buffalo did with 254 yards to only 80 by the Bears, who led the NFL in rushing coming into this week.

Then again, it was easy to run if you handed off, not if you were making a pitchout.

"It was crazy," Bears quarterback Justin Fields said. "It really impacted the whole game, I mean, from snaps to like even tosses. The tosses, like, D-Mo (David Montgomery) had to lock in on the toss. The snaps were, of course, going everywhere. It definitely impacts the passing game with trying to figure out which way you want to throw the ball, like which way the wind is blowing.

"You just have to think about all those things when you're of course calling plays and stuff like that."

Coldest Bears Games in Chicago

(By Wind Chill)

1. Bears 23, Packers 21 (Soldier Field), Dec. 18, 1983, 1 degree, minus-17 wind chill

2. Bears 14, Packers 0 (Soldier Field), Dec. 10, 1978, 1 degree, minus-16 wind chill

3. Bears 24, Lions 14 (Wrigley Field), Dec. 15, 1963, 1 degree, minus-15 wind chill

4. Bears 20, Packers 17 (Soldier Field), Dec. 22, 2008, 2 degrees, minus-13 wind chill

5. Bills 35, Bears 13 (Soldier Field), Dec. 24, 2022, 9 degrees, minus-12 wind chill

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