Alexander: Rams will battle both the Bears and the elements
It’s easy to forget, given the number of times that Southern California NFL teams have headed into the frigid climes of the North for postseason games only to have their championship hopes shoved into the deep freeze.
(Trust me, we’ll address those.)
But when the Rams ventured into Soldier Field 40 years ago this week for the NFC championship game, what turned out to be another lost postseason Sunday wasn’t a result of the frost. It was the wind.
The Rams lost that game to the eventual Super Bowl champs, 24-0. And any Rams fan who was around for that game probably remembers Dieter Brock, and the irony that the quarterback the Rams brought in from the Canadian Football League was befuddled by winds that reached up to 23 mph, to go with 36 degree temperatures and 26-degree wind chill.
This time, the Rams have Matthew Stafford at quarterback, a significant upgrade. But the conditions for their divisional round game Sunday evening at Soldier Field are expected to be even more raw. The Weather Channel forecast for the 5:30 CST kickoff (3:30 our time), as of Saturday afternoon: Around 18 degrees en route to a low of 10, a 43 percent chance of snow by kickoff and 12 mph winds.
(And the timing is good, at that, because there’s a “gale watch” for Chicago from 12 a.m. to 9 a.m. Monday morning.)
Does it matter? The Rams insist it won’t, which may be their way of hoping it won’t. But history is not on their side. Since 1960, when weather conditions were first included in NFL box score information, the Rams franchise has played 15 postseason games in 45 degree temperatures or colder. (That includes one 45-degree outdoor game in Seattle as the St. Louis Rams in 2005. Their other eight playoff games in 21 St. Louis seasons were in domes.)
As an L.A. team, living and practicing in balmier conditions before having to play in the chill, their playoff record at 45 degrees or less is 5-9. At 35 or below it’s 2-8, and in 25 degrees or colder it’s 1-4. (Included in those numbers are three excruciating, and bone-chilling, losses at Minnesota in 1969, 1974 and ’76 before the Vikings moved indoors.
It’s not just a Rams phenomenon, either. The Chargers are 2-8 in playoff games of 45 degrees or less, including a 1981 loss at Cincinnati in 9 degree temperatures with a wind chill of minus-32. The Raiders in their 12 seasons as an L.A. team were 0-3 at 40 degrees or less, including a 29-23 playoff loss at Buffalo in January, 1994 where the temperature was zero and the wind chill minus-14.
Now do you understand why SoCal football fans of long standing shiver, even in the comfort of their own homes, when the home team plays in the frozen north? Last January’s narrow divisional round loss in the snow in Philadelphia, a 28-22 defeat in which the Rams failed to convert a fourth-and-11 with 31 seconds left at the Eagles 22, was, pun intended, a chilling reminder.
Including regular season games since the Rams returned to L.A. in 2016, they’re 4-10 in 45 degree temperatures or less and 1-4 in temperatures below 25. So when players and coaches, including Sean McVay, joked this week about playing in the cold … well, it sounded a lot like attempting to not let it get into their heads.
McVay quipped that his fate was in the hands of equipment guy Brendan Burger. “Maybe I’ll have a heated vest,” he said, adding that it took long enough, with prodding from his wife and his mother, to get him to wear a beanie on the sidelines as he did last year in Philly.
“I don’t give a crap about me being warm or cold,” he said. “That (stuff) doesn’t matter at all. It’s about our players … You think I’m going to dress up like the Michelin man or something?”
Toward the end of last season, before a game with the New York Jets in the Meadowlands where temperatures reached 23 degrees, linebacker Jared Verse was one of a few teammates who went out onto the field shirtless during warmups.
“That was all Michael Hoecht,” Verse told reporters this past week, referring to the defensive end who was with the Rams last year and is now with Buffalo. “That was all his idea. He came outside with no shirt and the rest of us took our shirts off.
“Hoecht’s not here right now so I don’t plan on taking mine off,” he added, drawing laughs. “I might (wear a) short sleeve, like always, but shirtless, we’ll have a conversation about that.”
The Rams won that game, 19-9 – it was the Jets, after all – but Verse noted that it wasn’t the cold that bothered him that day: “I’m from Ohio. I lived in New York. I used to play in the hail. That doesn’t really faze me. That New York game was something else. It was that wind (measured that day at 8 mph) that got me.”
With Detroit, Stafford played in the same division with the Bears and Green Bay Packers for 12 seasons, and some of those road matchups invariably came in December or later. Stafford’s Lions were 4-6 in conditions under 45 degrees.
As a Ram, he’s 2-6, the victories coming over the Jets last season and the Giants in the Meadowlands on the final day of 2023. One of the losses was the regular season defeat at Carolina on Nov. 30, with the temperature right at 45 at game time.
“Fortunately, Matthew’s played in these conditions so it doesn’t change,” McVay said. “There are a couple things you have to be mindful of, but now you start talking about wind or rain and how that really affects your footing and stuff like that. We always adjust and adapt. They (the Bears) have to be able to play in those same elements. They obviously have had a little bit more experience, but we’re not going to allow that to be an excuse.”
Stafford’s sprained finger, suffered last week in Carolina, could be more of an impediment than anything Mother Nature throws at him, but Stafford said at midweek that it feels “great.” In other words, no excuse there, either.
“I think each game is unique,” Stafford said. “You can’t just bunch them all together. I played in Philly back in the day when there was six inches of snow on the ground. I played in other games where it’s just cold and dry. You just have to go figure out what the elements are and how it’s going to affect the ball and go play.
“You figure it out as you go. Each one is its own unique set of circumstances.”
Bottom line: They still have to play, and to make the best of the conditions.
And remember: They had a chance for the top seed in the NFC and let it get away with two losses in their final three games. So if this chance at a championship gets away in the cold and wind and snow, it’s on them.
jalexander@scng.com