The Los Angeles Rams beat the Carolina Panthers on the road to begin the NFL playoffs, and thanks in part to the Philadelphia Eagles losing to the San Francisco 49ers, the Rams will make the trip up north to face the Chicago Bears instead of the Seattle Seahawks.
This matchup is not expected to be an easy one, and not just because the on-field production from the Bears is incredible. The weather is expected to be brutal, with temperatures expected to be 16 degrees, with wind that will make the real-feel colder.
John Keim of ESPN has some incredible anecdotes on how players deal with cold weather. But the note on Matthew Stafford, and how he takes after Tom Brady in the cold, is an unexpected and interesting strategy to fight off the frigid temperatures.
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Rams-Bears might feature Matthew Stafford in a scuba suit
"Players know they must be physically prepared," Keim writes, "with some — such as Rams QB Matthew Stafford, perhaps inspired by Tom Brady — wearing scuba suits to fend off the cold."
Playing in the cold isn't easy, and when the temperatures get cold, Stafford brings out the scuba suit to stay away from the cold as much as possible.
Stafford will wear the suit underneath his uniform, and thanks to the texture and design not hindering his movements or flexibility, he can wear the suit without any worry about it negatively impacting his play.
In fact, it's more likely to help his game by keeping him even a little bit warmer on gameday than not using it would.
It's an interesting strategy, but considering Brady did a similar thing during his playing days, and he was the quarterback of the New England Patriots and played in plenty of cold games himself, it evidently works.
It worked for Brady, so why not Stafford? He's not played in many cold games in his NFL career thanks to the Detroit Lions and Rams playing their games in a dome, but he shouldn't be too negatively impacted against the Bears in the Divisional round.
Seeing how the players in this Bears-Rams matchup deal with the cold will be very interesting, and Stafford, based on this note from Keim, will be one player worth keeping extra-close attention to.
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