CHICAGO — Rams coach Sean McVay let his beard grow beyond his typical five-o’clock shadow, ostensibly to keep his face warm.
Quarterback Matthew Stafford donned his neoprene undergarment. Some Rams players put cayenne pepper in their socks to keep the heat in their feet.
It worked.
On a snowy, windy Sunday night, the Rams rode Stafford’s hot-at-the-right time arm, the Rams secondary’s hot-at-naysayers attitude, and kicker Harrison Mevis’ warm-and-fuzzy homecoming for a 20-17 overtime victory over the Chicago Bears in the NFC divisional playoffs before a crowd of 60,253 at Soldier Field.
Mevis, who grew up two hours from the stadium, won it with a 42-yard field goal that sent the Rams to the NFC championship game.
“Hell of a deal right there,” McVay said of his team’s resilience.
Kyren Williams rushed for two touchdowns, and the defense intercepted three passes as the Rams advanced to play the top-seeded Seahawks next Sunday at Lumen Field in Seattle.
The Rams split their two NFC West games with the Seahawks, who advanced to the conference title game with a 41-6 rout of the San Francisco 49ers on Saturday.
In Week 11 at SoFi Stadium, the Rams won, 21-19. Five weeks later at Seattle, the Rams lost, 38-37, in overtime.
“There’s no way the football gods would rather have it be than for us to go back up there in Seattle,” receiver Puka Nacua said, adding, “to get a chance to right our wrong.”
Rams running back Kyren Williams darts past Chicago Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson to score on a five-yard run in the fourth quarter Sunday.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
It took awhile, but things finally went right for McVay at Soldier Field in what had been a personal house of horrors.
In 2018, then-Bears defense coordinator Vic Fangio and his players flummoxed the Rams and sent them to a 15-6 defeat. Last season the Bears won only five games, including a 24-18 victory over the Rams.
But the Rams exorcised those demons and also proved — after losing in the 2020 playoffs at Green Bay and last season at Philadelphia — they could win a divisional-round game on the road in frigid conditions.
The Rams were coming off a 34-31 wild-card victory over the Carolina Panthers, a win that followed a familiar script: The Rams led early, enabled the opponent to get back into the game with lulls and costly errors, and then pulled out a victory.
McVay said he was aiming for his team to play a “full 60” minutes of complementary football by the offense, defense and special teams.
“Maybe this week is the week,” McVay said.
It wasn’t, but with a game-time temperature of 18 degrees with a wind chill of 6, the Rams just needed to survive a Bears team that pulled off one of its trademark fourth-quarter miracles when Caleb Williams connected with tight end Cole Kmet for a spectacular touchdown with less than 30 seconds left in regulation.
The Rams did it by overcoming “some bad coaching by me,” McVay said of his play-calling for much of the game.
They did it with two interceptions by cornerback Cobie Durant and fourth-down stops by the defense in regulation. They did it with an interception by Kam Curl in overtime that gave Stafford a chance to set up Mevis’ winning kick.
The score was tied 10-10 at halftime and stayed that way until Kyren Williams rushed for his second touchdown with just less than nine minutes left.
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Gary Klein breaks down what went right for the Rams in their 20-17 overtime victory against the Chicago Bears in the NFC divisional playoffs at Soldier Field.
The Bears drove to the Rams’ two-yard line with a little more than three minutes left, but the defense stopped running back D’Andre Swift on third down, and linebacker Omar Speights broke up Caleb Williams’ fourth-down pass.
The Rams, however. failed to run out the clock, and the Bears got the ball at midfield with 1:50 left.
On fourth down at the Rams’ 14, Caleb Williams escaped pressure by running backward out of the pocket, then turned and fired a touchdown pass to Kmet that traveled nearly 50 yards.
The Bears kicked the extra point to tie the score and send the game into overtime, then won the toss and opted to kick, and the Rams went three-and-out.
Curl’s interception staved off a threat, sending the crowd into silence.
“They knew what it was,” Curl said. “Giving the ball back to Matthew Stafford — it’s over with. Everybody knows that.”
Stafford, who suffered a sprained right index finger against the Panthers, was erratic for much of the night. He completed 20 of 42 passes for 252 yards with no touchdowns. But he also did not have a pass intercepted or lose a fumble.
And then, of course, there was the final drive.
After Curl’s interception, Stafford looked at McVay and McVay looked at Stafford. Stafford pointed his finger at his coach as if to say, “OK, here we go.”
Stafford completed passes to Colby Parkinson, Davante Adams and Nacua before two passes fell incomplete and Mevis came on to win the game.
Was Mevis, who was signed in November, surprised the Bears did not call time out to ice him?
“We were already iced with the cold weather,” Mevis quipped.
In the third week of the season, the Rams lost at Philadelphia when the Eagles blocked two field-goal attempts by Joshua Karty, including one on the final play of regulation that they returned for a touchdown.
Mevis changed the script.
“That’s why they brought me in,” he said, “to help this team win, and we did that.”
Harrison Mevis kicks a 42-yard field goal in overtime to lift the Rams to a 20-17 win over the Chicago Bears in the NFC divisional playoffs Sunday at Soldier Field.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
With another winning drive by Stafford. So add another mantel to the soul-snatching, heart-stealing Stafford: Snowpiercer.
“Obviously, I can be better, but playoff football is about winning the football game,” he said before referencing last season’s playoff loss in Philadelphia. “Played great, threw for a bunch of yards last year in the snow and we lost, so that [stuff] sucks.
“So I’m happy to have played a little bit worse … and going home with a win. I’ll take that.”
All the way to Seattle.