You Don’t Get Used to the Cold. You Get Built By It

Ben Johnson banned the heaters.

Not on game day. Not in the locker room.
At practice. All week. In Chicago. In January.

His Bears have been preparing for Sunday's Divisional Round showdown against the Los Angeles Rams the same way this city prepares for winter: by accepting that comfort isn't the goal. Readiness is.

"We hated it at first," Kevin Byard admitted. But now? "Our bodies are fully acclimated. It's going to be nothing for us to go out there and operate in the cold weather."

That's not just tough talk.
That's tactical preparation.

While Sean McVay told reporters he won't change much for the cold and doesn't want to "waste emotional energy" on the weather, Johnson stripped his team of every shortcut. No heaters. No shelter. Just wind, frozen grass, and the certainty that Sunday night's wind chill will drop to single digits or below zero at Soldier Field.

This will be the coldest game the Rams have played all season.
The Bears have been living in it all week.

Because Chicago Bears football doesn't start at kickoff.

It starts in the parking lot.
It starts when your car says 20 and your bones say "not this sh*t again."

Chicago winters don't ease you in.
One day it's 40 and manageable. The next day, winter kicks the door in and reminds you who you are.

You go outside anyway. You warm up that car. You layer up. You move fast. You figure it out.

Because in Chicago, the cold doesn't ask if you're ready.
It just shows up.

That's what Ben Johnson tapped into this week.

This Bears team has won seven games in the fourth quarter this season. Seven times they've been tested when it mattered most, and seven times they've answered. That doesn't happen by accident. It happens when a first-year head coach builds a culture that treats discomfort as preparation, not punishment.

Johnson isn't asking his players to survive the cold.
He's asking them to master it.

And if that sounds familiar, it should.

I've seen this movie before.

December 2018. Bears versus Rams at Soldier Field. Wind chill in the negatives. My wife had just given birth to our son two months earlier, and my best friend since third grade — a lifelong Rams fan — convinced us all to go. Him, his girlfriend (now his wife), a few other buddies, and me bundling up like we were heading to the Arctic.

Layers on layers. Hand warmers failing. Breath freezing in the air.

The Bears won that night, 15-6.

But it wasn't close. One of the best offenses in football walked into Soldier Field and got held to six points. Jared Goff threw four interceptions. The headlines the next day said it all: Bears stop Rams cold. And they did. Literally. Goff left that field looking like he was just happy to escape the freeze.

Back then, the cold did the work for us. The Rams came to town, played in conditions they weren't built for, and folded. Chicago showed up, survived, and won because the weather was enough.

But that was then.

This time, Johnson isn't relying on the lakefront wind to save them. He made his team train in it. Made them acclimate to it. Made them stop thinking about the cold and start using it.

That's the evolution.

In 2018, the cold was our edge because the other team couldn't handle it.
In 2026, the cold is our edge because we mastered it.

And the stakes demand it.

A win Sunday puts the Bears in their first NFC Championship Game since 2010. Fifteen years since they've been that close. Fifteen years of rebuilds, missed drafts, coaching carousels, and watching other franchises figure it out while Chicago spun its wheels.

This would also be the Bears' first home playoff win at Soldier Field since January 16, 2011, when they beat the Seahawks in the Divisional Round. The same round they're playing Sunday. Same stage. Same building. Different team.

This Bears squad went from worst to first in the NFC North and posted their first winning season since 2018. Johnson walked into a rebuild and turned it into a contender in Year 1. A conference title berth would validate everything — the culture shift, the fourth-quarter resilience, the refusal to treat the weather as an obstacle instead of an edge.

The Rams are 2-1 in their last three cold-weather games, including a playoff loss in the snow against the Eagles. They're not soft. Matthew Stafford said he actually likes cold outdoor playoff football, that it "feels appropriate."

But liking it and training for it are two different things.

Midwesterners aren't born tougher. They're trained.

Trained by 5:30 a.m. alarms in the dark.
Trained by snowstorms that disappear overnight but leave the cold behind.
Trained by knowing it's going to be brutal and going anyway.

What changes isn't the temperature.
It's the mindset.

Over time, something forms.
A callous.
Not on your hands. Not on your face.
In your spirit.

That's what the Rams are walking into Sunday night.

This isn't punishment.

This is home field advantage.

This is Chicago Bears playoff football.
At Soldier Field.
In January.
In the cold.

Sunday night, when the breath hangs in the air and the wind cuts through layers, Chicago will find out if this team was built by it — or just visiting.

And one more time for the good time:

THIS CHICAGO!!

Bear down.