Matthew Stafford leads game-winning OT drive as Rams top Bears, advance to NFC title game

By Nate Atkins, Kevin Fishbain and Dan Wiederer
Harrison Mevis kicked a 42-yard field goal with 3:20 remaining in overtime as the Los Angeles Rams beat the Chicago Bears 20-17 Sunday night in a thriller at snowy, frigid Soldier Field. The Rams will face the Seattle Seahawks next Sunday in the NFC Championship Game.
It will be the Rams’ first NFC title game since the 2021 season and the third under coach Sean McVay.
The Bears’ storybook season under first-year coach Ben Johnson ended as the NFC North champions fell just short of pulling off their eighth comeback victory in the fourth quarter or overtime.
Rams safety Kamren Curl intercepted Bears quarterback Caleb Williams with 6:39 remaining in overtime. Then quarterback Matthew Stafford led the Rams to the Bears’ 24-yard line, with receivers Davante Adams and Puka Nacua making key catches along the way.
The Bears forced overtime when Williams scrambled backward and heaved a fourth-down touchdown pass to tight end Cole Kmet in the back corner of the end zone with 18 seconds left in regulation. It’s officially a 14-yard touchdown pass, but Williams threw it off his back foot from the 26-yard line.
Rams running back Kyren Williams rushed for 87 yards and two touchdowns, including a go-ahead score with 8:50 to go in regulation. It looked like Los Angeles might have sealed it with a goal-line stand with 3:03 remaining, but Chicago forced a punt and got the ball back at the 50-yard line with 1:50 to go to set up Williams’ latest jaw-dropping throw.
Caleb Williams threw for 257 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions. Stafford finished with 258 passing yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions.
The Rams and Seahawks split their season series, with the home team winning each meeting, including Seattle’s 38-37 overtime victory on Dec. 18.
Stafford saves the day
This was built to be the game the Rams lived with Kyren Williams and Blake Corum in the run game. It was their first in a month with right guard Kevin Dotson back and first in three weeks with a healthy tight ends room. It was frigid, with temperatures under 20 degrees and snow blanketing Soldier Field. And it featured a Bears defense that ranks in the bottom seven of nearly every run defense stat out there.
But once the Rams’ opening drive featured 10 passes and worked for an 85-yard scoring drive, it seemed like coach Sean McVay and offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur zeroed in on Stafford and the passing game to lead them through these conditions. And it stayed choppy from there.
Los Angeles finally got back to the ground attack early in the fourth quarter, perhaps out of basic necessity after Adams converted a first down, took a hit and had to leave the field to get checked out in the blue tent. The Rams ran a jet sweep with Nacua to convert a fourth down and then punched it in with Williams’ second touchdown run of the game. But by then, they flipped the script a little too much by running it on third-and-10 with 2:07 left to kill just seven seconds off the clock instead of asking Stafford and these weapons to make one play to seal the game. And then in overtime, the Rams ran three times and punted the ball back to Chicago.
The Rams put too much on Stafford, Nacua and Adams in the elements early, when the snow was falling hard. And they didn’t put it on them at all once that snow mostly cleared and the Bears were selling out to stop the run. The Rams needed one first down to seal a trip to the NFC Championship Game. It’s just a really hard way to go out.
But, as he often does, Stafford pulled out something incredible when he had to in overtime. After Curl’s interception kept the game alive, Stafford ripped one of his best throws of the season at a sidearm angle as Adams dragged his toes to stay in bounds for a first down. Then Stafford hit the ol’ reliable Nacua to convert a third down into field-goal range. And Mevis came through as the hero with the winning field goal.
Stafford led the NFL in touchdown passes on the No. 1 scoring offense while playing the No. 1 strength of schedule in the NFL. In the postseason, he’s led two game-winning drives in games that felt like they were slipping from the Rams’ grasp. He’s played his way to his assumed first Most Valuable Player trophy, and though he was far from perfect at Soldier Field, he remains the biggest reason the Rams are one win away from returning to the Super Bowl. — Nate Atkins, Rams beat writer
Bears’ magic finally runs out
For the past four months, the Bears were reminded of the exhilaration of winning, taking a joy ride to an NFC North championship and the organization’s first postseason victory in 15 years. On Sunday evening, the Bears received notice on the cruelty and suddenness of a playoff loss. Season over. Super Bowl dreams dashed.
In simplest form, the Rams were the better and more experienced team and played like it during the pivotal moments of overtime. Curl did the honors for the Rams defense, intercepting Caleb Williams on the Bears’ only possession of overtime. Quarterback Matthew Stafford then took Los Angeles 54 yards for a walk-off field goal, a moment the Bears and their fans won’t get over for quite some time, even with the context of how extraordinary the team’s achievements were this season.
Life at this level, at this stage of the playoffs is unforgiving. And the Bears found that out the hard way even after another miraculous comeback, using more final-minute heroics from Williams to tie the game at 17 with 18 seconds remaining in regulation. Williams’ 14-yard TD pass to Kmet was preposterous, an off-script prayer throw from 26 yards behind the line of scrimmage but finding Kmet in Soldier Field’s north end zone for the final jaw-dropping Bears highlight of the season. But the Bears ran out of magic in overtime and their season came to an abrupt and gut-wrenching end just two games shy of the Super Bowl. — Dan Wiederer, Bears beat writer
Near-misses prove costly for Chicago
In an overtime, one-score loss, the Bears will look back to their missed opportunities. Yes, they converted the most important fourth down of the game on Williams’ touchdown to Kmet to tie it up in regulation, and then Williams’ sneak in overtime kept the sticks moving, but they had three fourth-down failures earlier in the game.
They struggled mightily in short-yardage. And then each of Williams’ three picks ended a possible scoring drive. The Bears never had issues coming back in games, as we saw yet again. They could perform mightily in the clutch. But they had issues putting teams away, and capitalizing, which is why they often had to win it in the fashion they did. The defense kept getting the offense the ball back, and the response wasn’t enough. It was a remarkable effort against maybe the best team the Bears have faced all season, and it ends what was ultimately an incredibly successful season, but to fall by a field goal only highlights the near-misses. It’ll be the next step for the Bears next season in Year 2 under Johnson. — Kevin Fishbain, Bears beat writer
Rams’ defense and special teams held up
When the Rams have lost games this season, it’s usually involved a special teams meltdown of some variety or a pair of outside cornerbacks who couldn’t hold up in the fourth quarter when players make the plays.
Neither was the case in Chicago for so much of this game.
The special teams played a mostly clean game and also had a moment when Ethan Evans caught a difficult snap and launched a 51-yard punt out of bounds at the Bears’ 4-yard line shortly after halftime. Evans did shank a punt for 33 yards right after the two-minute warning to give the Bears great field position down one score in the fourth. Mevis came through with a two field goals, including a 42-yard game-winner. And the unit avoided giving up any explosive returns or committing costly penalties like it had in other games.
The defense gave up one touchdown drive that Caleb Williams had to make a great throw on fourth down to convert but otherwise kept the Rams in this game with three fourth-down stops. It forced two turnovers, both Cobie Durant interceptions, including one at midfield in a tie game in the third quarter. It didn’t get the explosive plays in the pass rush it wanted, but Williams has made those tough to find all season.
With just over three minutes to go, the Bears had four plays to move it 5 yards, and the final two were stuffed right at the goal line with a great hit by safety Quentin Lake on a stretch run where running back D’Andre Swift tried to hurdle into the end zone and then safety Omar Speights read the eyes of Williams to break up a pass to receiver Luther Burden in the end zone.
But when the Rams chose to put the game on their special teams and defense by running on third-and-10 to kill seven seconds of game time, things started to change. Evans shanked a punt for just 33 yards to set the Bears up at the 50-yard line. And when the defense was faced with yet another fourth down, the pass rush flushed Williams way behind the line before he unheaved a prayer, and Durant got outmuscled by Kmet in the back corner of the end zone for a 14-yard touchdown with 18 seconds to go. Williams was 26 yards behind the line of scrimmage when he uncorked a prayer that traveled 55 yards in the air — a true superhuman play but still one that a defensive back has to find a way to knock down.
But even with that gut-punch, the defense came up big in overtime yet again, with Curl’s interception, helping set up Mevis’ winning field goal in the biggest spot of his life.
The Rams weren’t going to have a chance to return to the Super Bowl without at least one game like this from these units. They got it at the absolute most critical time. — Atkins