The weather forecast for Sunday night’s Rams-Bears game calls for snow and temperatures around 20 degrees. Bears coach Ben Johnson approves.
“I like the cold. I do like the cold,” Johnson said.
Does the weather give Chicago an advantage over a team from Los Angeles?
“I do know this will be the coldest game that they’ve played this year,” Johnson said “That’s something I recognized when we found out who the opponent was. But I think Matthew Stafford has played well in cold games in his past, I don’t know how much of an advantage that gives you over their passing game necessarily. There’s a lot of elements that go into a game like this.”
Johnson, who previously served as offensive coordinator of the Lions, said that even though Detroit has an indoor home field, he liked to get his players ready to play in cold weather on the road by practicing outside. He’s not sure how the Rams will simulate that.
“When I was in Detroit you’re outside to start with and it’s usually pretty cold to start with this time of year anyway, so you could practice outside and try to acclimate yourself as much as you can. I think that’s a good question for them, how they feel about that,” Johnson said.
Johnson hopes the visitors from Southern California feel uncomfortable visiting Chicago in January.
There’s still nothing like the NFL on a three-letter network.
Sure, Saturday night’s Packers-Bears game on Prime Video drew 31.61 million viewers. Sunday’s game on Fox did much, much better.
Fox has announced that the 49ers-Eagles wild-card game averaged 41 million viewers. It’s the biggest audience for a FOX wild-card game since 2015, and the biggest audience for any wild-card game since 2022.
The audience peaked at 47.758 million between 7:30 and 7:45 p.m. ET.
The game featured the two teams that have represented the NFC in the last three Super Bowls, with the Eagles getting there twice and the 49ers getting there once. San Francisco faces the Seahawks in Seattle on Saturday night, also on Fox.
In picking Packers-Bears for Prime Video, the NFL knew exactly what it was doing.
The best matchup of the wild-card round became the most exciting of the six games, too. That propelled the contest to an all-time streaming record, with 31.61 million viewers.
The number represents a 43-percent bump over last year’s Prime Video playoff game between the Steelers and the Ravens, which averaged 22.07 million viewers. It also broke the streaming record set by the Netflix Lions-Vikings game on Christmas Day, with 27.52 million.
The streaming high-water mark comes at a perfect time for the NFL. Amazon, as we understand it, will have to re-bid on the game next year. And the massive number for the latest game makes the property even more valuable going forward.
Which would explain the NFL’s decision to handpick the best game of the wild-card slate for a streaming-only broadcast.
And, yes, people still huff and puff about streaming only games. As long as the numbers blow the house down, the pivot to streaming will become more and more permanent.
The Bears officially ended the seasons of linebacker T.J. Edwards and left tackle Ozzy Trapilo on Tuesday.
Edwards fractured his fibula in the wild card round win over the Packers while Trapilo suffered a ruptured patellar tendon. Both players were placed on injured reserve.
Edwards had 67 tackles, an interception and a half-sack in 10 games during the regular season. Tremaine Edmunds and D’Marco Jackson were the team’s linebackers after Edwards’ injury and they signed Jalen Reeves-Maybin off of the practice squad Tuesday.
The Bears also activated offensive tackle Braxton Jones off of injured reserve. He’ll join Theo Benedet as options to replace Trapilo during the rest of the team’s postseason run.
Sean McVay has game-planned against Ben Johnson before, when Johnson was the Lions’ offensive coordinator.
But Sunday’s matchup between the Rams and Bears will be the first contest between the two as head coaches.
Asked what stands out about Johnson as a play-caller during his Monday news conference, McVay said he thinks Johnson does a great job.
“I’ve studied him really closely from when he took over and started doing it in Detroit,” McVay said. “I think the guys that do the best job are the ones that you can see there’s a true understanding of what defenses are doing and an intent to try to be able to manipulate a lot of the rules and the coaching points and to really try to attack your front mechanics, your coverage contours, understand some of the percentages of what you’re doing situationally, and then being able to maximize his player skill sets. You could see there’s a philosophy and core beliefs in terms of how he wants to build it.
“You look at the four free agents they signed, you look at the guys that they drafted high up, taking the tight end [Colston Loveland] and in a lot of the instances where he was able to take advantage of [Sam] LaPorta in Detroit.”
McVay specifically noted how Johnson has been able to create systems that are based on quarterbacks with different skillsets.
“I think what shows his flexibility is the ability to have one of the best offenses with a player like Jared [Goff] who’s really special and then being able to have some similar foundational principles with Caleb [Williams], but also be able to accentuate the things that make him really unique with the athleticism, the ability to move the spot and then take advantage of their skill around it,” McVay said. “He does a damn good job. I think he’s got a timely feel for wanting to be able to mix in some things like he did with the screen and go that allowed them to take the lead the other day.
“We’re excited about these challenges. This is what it’s about.”
