In anticipation of the Chicago Bears’ and St. Louis Rams’ game this Sunday, we have been revisiting some of the most memorable moments of this longstanding series.
Previously, we discussed the teams’ clash in the National Division tiebreaker game in 1950 for the right to play for the NFL championship; and we waxed nostalgic about the Bears’ defeat of the Rams in a 1977 regular season clash that marked the last game played by QB Broadway Joe Namath .
We continue our walk down memory lane today.
1). Bears at Los Angeles Rams on December 26, 1982 (“A offensive blueprint for complementing a dominant defense”)
Prior to the 1982 season, Bears’ owner George Halas hired his former player Mike Ditka as head coach and tasked the fiery Ditka with resurrecting a once-proud franchise that had made just three postseason appearances since 1957.
The Rams’ streak of eight consecutive playoff appearances was ended by a 6-10 mark in 1981.
Head coach Ray Malavasi, who had guided the Rams to the playoffs in his first three seasons (1978-1980), including a Super Bowl appearance following the 1979 season, was on the hot seat.
The Bears opened the season with consecutive losses behind the ineffective play of veteran quarterbacks Vince Evans and Bob Avellini. The 57-day players’ strike followed and wiped out seven regular season games. When play resumed on November 21, Ditka had named rookie first-round quarterback Jim McMahon as his starter.
The future was now.
The Rams had traded for longtime Baltimore Colts QB Bert Jones in the offseason, but when Jones was forced to retire after the Rams fourth game due to a neck injury, Los Angeles reinserted Vince Ferragamo.
Ferragamo was at the controls for the Rams magical Super Bowl run in 1979 and produced an impressive encore in 1980, making 15 starts and finishing third in the league in passer rating and tied for second with 30 touchdown throws. Ferragamo had returned to the Rams after spending the 1981 season in the Canadian Football League.
The 1-6 Rams and 2-5 Bears combined for 1004 yards of offense. Ferragamo’s 506 yards, on 30 of 46 passing, was the second highest total in league history, and he added three touchdown passes.
But he also tossed two interceptions, the Rams had three turnovers overall, and their largely one-dimensional offense could muster just 77 rushing yards.
Meanwhile, McMahon was a highly efficient 18 of 28 for 280 yards and two touchdowns, the Bears rushed for 158 yards, including Walter Payton’s 104, and the team committed no turnovers. Payton also added 102 receiving yards, the second time in his illustrious career he exceeded the century mark in both rushing and receiving yards in the same game.
The Bears prevailed 34-26, but more importantly, McMahon and the Bears had created a blueprint on offense, maintaining balance and limiting turnovers, that would perfectly complement the Bears’ legendarily dominant defense in their 1985 championship season.
Malavasi was fired by the Rams at season’s end.
2). Los Angeles Rams at Bears on January 12, 1986 (“Avenging the 1950 tiebreaker game”):
Despite having played in the same conference since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger and being divisional foes from 1937 to 1966, the Bears and Rams have only played twice in the postseason. The Rams dealt the Bears a crushing defeat in the 1950 National Division tiebreaker game. The Bears would seek to avenge that loss in the 1985 NFC Championship game.
The 1985 Bears have been well chronicled. In addition to producing the league’s best record (15-1), the Bears led the league in overall defense and rushing offense, were ranked ninth in passing efficiency and committed the fourth fewest turnovers.
The Rams were no lightweights. They produced an 11-5 regular season record and finished with the fifth-ranked defense. Moreover, they boasted the league’s top running back in third-year player Eric Dickerson, who had gashed the Bears for a combined 376 rushing yards and four touchdowns in regular season victories over Chicago in 1983 and 1984.
For the first time in league history, both teams in the conference championship game had blanked their opponents in the divisional round of the playoffs.
Dickerson set an NFL single-game playoff record of 248 rushing yards the previous week in a 20-0 pasting of the Dallas Cowboys. The Bears obliterated the New York Giants 21-0, sacking quarterback Phil Simms six times, and held the Giants to 181 yards of offense while generating 363 of their own.
The Bears became the first, and still only, team in league history to pitch a shutout in the conference playoffs en route to the Super Bowl after dismantling the Rams 24-0. Dickerson was finally curtailed, gaining just 46 yards on 17 carries. Rams’ quarterback Dieter Brock was held to a paltry 66 passing yards on 10 of 31 attempts and was sacked three times, the last one resulting in a fumble scooped up by linebacker Wilber Marshall which he returned 52 yards for a touchdown.
Marshall was escorted during his entire romp to the end zone by teammates William Perry and Otis Wilson, snowflakes swirling in the air for dramatic effect. The Rams had been put on ice.
Two weeks later, in perhaps the most anticlimactic Super Bowl in league history, the Bears decimated the Patriots 46-10, ending a 22-year championship drought.
3) Bears at St. Louis Rams on December 11, 2006 (“Devin Hester breaks the record”):
The Bears selected the multi-dimensional Devin Hester in the second round of the 2006 draft after the team finished the 2005 season 11-5 and made the playoffs for the first time under head coach Lovie Smith. No one could have anticipated the impact the rookie would have and the threat he would pose to the record books.
Prior to the Bears’ Monday night game at St. Louis, Hester had returned a punt for a touchdown in an opening-week throttling of Green Bay, returned a game-winning punt in a Week Six win over Arizona, returned a missed field goal 108 yards for a touchdown in a Week Ten defeat of the New York Giants and returned a punt for a touchdown in a Week 13 win over Minnesota.
Hester still needed two non-offensive touchdowns to set the single-season NFL record of five achieved by Hall-of-Fame cornerback/kick returner Ken Houston for the 1971 Houston Oilers.
After suffering nine consecutive losing seasons between 1990 and 1998, spanning the team’s final five years in Los Angeles and first four in St. Louis, the “Greatest Show on Turf” offense helped propel the Rams to five playoff appearances in six season (1999-2004), two conference championships and a Super Bowl title following the 1999 season. Yet when the teams met in 2006, the Rams were mired in the second year of what has now become an ten-year playoff drought (2005-2014).
When the Rams secured a 6-0 second quarter lead, Hester returned the ensuing kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown. The teams traded touchdowns before the Bears scored 21 unanswered points. Midway through the fourth quarter, Rams’ superstar receiver Torry Holt’s touchdown reception cut the deficit to 35-20.
But Devin Hester extinguished any doubt about the outcome when he scampered 96 yards for a touchdown on the following kickoff, breaking Ken Houston’s record and giving the Bears a 42-20 lead in a game they would win 42-27.
The Bears stormed into Super Bowl XLI against the Indianapolis Colts after posting a 13-3 regular season record, and Hester became the first player to return the opening kickoff of a Super Bowl for a touchdown. He then matched his 1996 record the following season when he returned four more punts and two kickoffs for touchdowns.
Maybe Sunday’s game, the 90th overall meeting between the franchises, will yield more memorable moments.