zn wrote:

Zooey wrote:

All this talk of the cold is making me think I might light a fire in my stove Sunday morning so it will be a crisp 75 degrees in my TV room. Might even have a mug of hot cocoa just to tamp down on my empathy for the players.

Burn sage in the wood stove.

What kind of wood do you use out there in mid California?

For me it’s oak, ash, and maple.

Oak is the best common firewood in these parts. Oak is omnipresent. We have a lot of pine in the area – it’s often available for free in rounds just off the freeway – but pine isn’t worth the effort of splitting it, really, at least not if oak is available. I use it sometimes, but mostly when it happens to be available right when I’ve rented a splitter anyway, and need to round out my stacks. I have been burning elm for a decade because I had two giant elms that had to come down for safety purposes, and it was decent. I use manzanita, too.

This year is the least amount of firewood I’ve used, so far. I’ve had a fire going maybe 3 or 4 days all season so far. We’ve had frost once all winter. We’ve had quite a good run of rainfall, but it’s been sunny and in the mid-60s for a week, with lows in the low 40s. The forecast is for more of the same for the rest of January with some clouds and showers here and there, but we’ve had colder Octobers than this.

Maybe I’ll have a look for a sage smudge stick. Pretty sure we have one or two remnants around the house. I know Old Hacker used to recommend it. Might clear up some bad mojo around the playoffs, and balance out that -9 wind chill factor.

wv wrote:

Well, all I know is, they wouldnt have this problem if the Rams had stayed
in Cleveland.

w
v

Or preserved a 16-point 4th quarter lead over Seattle.

InvaderRam wrote:

a lot of rams influencers/pundits are getting really defensive about the weather factor. i don’t understand why. it’s a factor. the rams play in la which has really mild weather. bears players play in these conditions. it’s an advantage. hopefully, the rams can overcome it.

It hasn’t been as cold as it’s going to be on Sunday, so it’s going to be colder than the Bears are used to. And when it comes to that, Stafford has played in more cold weather games than Caleb Williams has. Williams is from SoCal as well, remember. And most of the football season, the Bears are playing in temperatures above freezing. It was 60 degrees in Chicago last Thursday, and 52 degrees the day before yesterday. I think they have a slight advantage in this respect, but Stafford, the RBs (Notre Dame and Michigan), and Davante Adams have all played in cold weather before. I think it will affect skill players more than the other guys, but I don’t think anybody ever “gets used to” 16 degrees. That’s effing cold.

It’s supposed to be 36 degrees in Chicago tomorrow, and drops to 18 degrees on Saturday. I’m guessing the Rams will be there by then. So this is a fairly sudden and dramatic drop in temperature, and the Bears won’t be any more used to it that the Rams are. Not significantly, anyway.

• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by Zooey.

The Athletic staff unanimously picks the Rams to win….

We know that isn’t how it works for Ben Johnson and the Bears. We know that. This is the NFL, and Chicago obviously has a game plan coming into every contest. But knowing and feeling are two different things, and boy, it feels like the Bears are performing free jazz up until the fourth quarter. With their impossible comeback win over Green Bay, Chicago has now won seven games in which they were trailing in the final two minutes, two more than any team has pulled off in a single season (playoffs included) in the Super Bowl era.

But the Packers, while talented, are not the Rams. Los Angeles is a far more efficient offensive machine and isn’t dealing with the gut punch of losing their core defensive player. It’s tempting to point to the wild-card game against Carolina as proof of L.A.’s fallibility, but consider this: Abraham Nunez batted .242 for his career, but hit .429 off Greg Maddux the 30 times he faced him. Weird stuff happens, and sometimes mediocre talent finds the magic against a particular opponent.

The Bears are at home, and their two losses at Soldier Field were by three points, so in that sense, the Rams being favored by 3.5 points has a certain logic to it. But in every other sense, this spread seems awfully conservative. A quick rundown of the Rams’ advantages:

The deep ball

The Bears allowed the second-most touchdowns and second-most yards per game on deep passes (20-plus air yards) this season, and only the Cowboys gave up more touchdowns on passes that went 10 or more yards in the air.

Matt Stafford completed more deep passes than any quarterback in the league, throwing an NFL-best 10 touchdowns and one interception. On passes over 10 yards, he had the most touchdowns (19), most yards (2,568) and threw just three picks. His EPA on throws over 10 yards is an astounding (and league-leading) +138.6.

Play action

Chicago has allowed more touchdowns off play action than anyone but the Jets, and surrendered the fifth-most yards per game to it this year.

Play action is the lifeblood of the Rams’ offense, and they are devastatingly good at it. L.A. runs play action more than any other team, averaging more than 100 yards and a touchdown per game. No one comes close to Stafford, who has thrown 20 touchdowns and one pick, six more scores than the next-closest quarterback.

The ground game

There’s no doubt the Bears can run the ball, but the problem for them is the Rams can, too. The bigger problem is that Chicago’s defense is worse at stopping the run than L.A.’s is. The biggest problem is that the Bears are really bad at stopping the types of runs the Rams are great at. Los Angeles is seventh in EPA per rush outside the tackles; Chicago’s defense is 29th. The Rams’ Blake Corum and Kyren Williams are first and third in rushing success rate on runs from under center; the Bears are 24th against under-center runs. It’s not that Chicago can’t run on the Rams; it’s that the Rams can run right back.

Fourth-quarter magic

The Bears have been heroic in the last 15 minutes of games. Through last week, they have 20 fourth-quarter touchdowns (second), average +.11 EPA per play (second) and are first in yards per play (5.9). Impossibly, the Rams have the exact same numbers. The two teams are tied in each one of those fourth-quarter stats.

Defensively, the Rams outshine Chicago considerably in the final frame. L.A. has the most fourth-quarter QB pressures, the third-most sacks, and allows the seventh-stingiest EPA per play.

Caleb Williams and his pixie dust represent Chicago’s only true edge in the game, as the Rams are bad against quarterback scrambles and among the worst at surrendering passing yards when they blitz. The second-year QB is tremendous at both of those things, and his ability to execute near-impossible throws can make up a lot of lost ground in a hurry. Still, there’s only so much you can do in 120 seconds, and the first 58 minutes against the Rams could make the final two irrelevant.

Singapore is GMT +8 (Greenwich Mean Time) which means if we set the game then, we will know the result of the game 16 hours before anybody in the PST (Proper Standard Time) zone.

wv wrote:

zooey is too yoko

St. Louis is May Pang.

zn wrote:

Isaac@imr__01
Rams penalties per game weeks 1-15: 4.2

Rams penalties per game post Puka speaking on the refs: 6.25

Somebody show that tweet to Puka. Show it to the whole team.

wv wrote:

Cowherd pointed out Raheem and Brandon Staley both failed as Head Coaches, and like them, Shula is a rams’ Defensive guy. So, i dunno.

I don’t have any idea if Shula will be/would be a good HC. Miami isn’t a great situation since they don’t have a QB (and Tua has a hefty, long-term contract that will be difficult to unload). The fact that they have been largely unsuccessful for such a long time also implies that there are organizational problems that even good coaches may find difficult to overcome. I dunno. All I’m saying is that from Miami’s point of view, hiring Don Shula’s grandson off a good team with a good defense under him is going to stimulate the fan base. For whatever that’s worth.

Edit: On Tua, I heard some yapper propose that Miami could/should trade Tua “NBA style” to get rid of him. That would mean sending good draft picks along with Tua to a team that is looking to completely rebuild through the draft, and they would take on Tua’s contract to eat in exchange for extra good (and cheap) draft picks. So Arizona might be a candidate for that. Take Tua (with no intention of starting him), and get a bunch of youngsters in the draft.

• This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by Zooey.

If Rodgers retires, this is the last pass play of his career.

Calen Bullock takes it back for six!

HOUvsPIT on ESPN/ABC
Stream on @NFLPlus and ESPN App pic.twitter.com/3ma9Dt0g73

— NFL (@NFL) January 13, 2026

wv wrote:

Steelers/Tomlin now 7 straight playoff losses.

Yeah, I was looking at that in disbelief last night. I didn’t know about falling behind by 21+ points in all of them, and that undoubtedly makes it far worse. 7 playoff losses in 9 years ( I think it is), and zero playoff victories. Wow.

That isn’t something you want to flaunt on your resume. I gotta think they have to be considering replacing Tomlin. How are you going to “run it back” next year with Tomlin and Rodgers?

Rams…first game wild card weekend.

Last game divisional weekend.

Kickoff: 3:30 pm pst on sunday.

zn wrote:

Zooey wrote:

. It appeared they had fixed their STs.

I looked up the culprit from the blocked punt, #34, rookie DB Tanner Ingle. He’s had a total of 43 special teams snaps all season, and 17 of those were in the wildcard game. He was promoted from the practice squad to replace an injured player. My bet is, he hasn’t been practicing on special teams and is a green rookie who got fooled on that one play by a veteran. The punt blocker, Isaiah Simmons, is a 6’4 OLB/DB (Ingle is 5’8) who is a 6 year veteran and who has had 650 career snaps on special teams.

Does that relieve the new STs coordinator from responsibility? No, that’s not supposed to happen regardless. Especially in a playoff game. Should the new STs coordinator have anticipated that Ingle against Simmons was a mismatch? Yes. But I also think that one play was the result of one player screwing up, and that is easy to fix. You straighten Ingle out or replace him or both.

So what you’re saying is that the Rams HAVE fixed special teams, and this one play was one of those damn flukey things that happen sometimes.

I think I agree with that. One bad play in two months is probably not illustrative of an ongoing problem.

wv wrote:

Seahawks 6.5 point favorites over SF.

w
v

From last week’s misery to this week’s giddy triumph, the SF fans now believe this is a team of destiny. They don’t even seem concerned about the loss of Kittle.

nittany ram wrote:

I think I’d rather have the Rams go to Seattle. The weather won’t be as extreme and the Rams have won their fair share of games there.

I think I lean that way, too, but that means a cold weather game the next week anyway.

Doesn’t matter at this point. The Rams have to slog uphill no matter what.

Middlekauff is right, imo. You cannot trust the Rams at this point. The way they have been playing since the end of November is concerning. The secondary had been playing very well in the middle of the season, and the Rams were rolling. It appeared they had fixed their STs.

But they have been playing dangerously for the past 7 games. They’ve blown double digit leads multiple times (going back to Philadelphia), and they just aren’t reliable. They haven’t dominated. How can you trust the secondary to shut down Caleb Williams? Or cover Smith-Njigba?

The Rams will go as far as the offense can carry them this year. The good news is that that is potentially all the way. But, man, there are some leaks in the hull that Stafford is going to have to keep bailing out. Even Stafford has been inconsistent, but when the game is on the line, he delivers. He seems to always be laser accurate in the 4th quarter anyway.

So what are we rooting for here? Seattle or Chicago next?

I don’t think I care. The Packers blew up my preferred road by losing.