One of the perks, or drawbacks, depending on one’s perspective, of playing football outdoors in the winter is that conditions can be downright frigid, and Saturday’s game between the Chicago Bears and Buffalo Bills has the potential to be one of the coldest in the storied history of the Monsters of the Midway.
According to NBC 5 Storm Team Meteorologist Paul Deanno, the forecasted high temperature on Saturday at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport is 10 degrees, and while that temperature wouldn’t quite crack the top-10 coldest games in the history of the Bears, it would certainly be close.
Using the Stathead tool on Pro Football Reference, we have compiled a list of the 10 coldest games in Bears history, using wind chill as a tiebreaker for the five games that had a kickoff temperature of 8 degrees above zero.
Currently, there is a tie for the coldest game ever played at Soldier Field, with 1978 and 1983 contests between the Bears and Green Bay Packers both clocking in at just 1 degree above zero at kickoff. The 1983 game had a wind chill of minus-17 degrees, which is the coldest recorded wind chill in Bears history.
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The latter record could potentially be challenged this weekend, as gusty winds are forecasted to stick around the area through at least Christmas Day. More clarity will emerge on that forecast as the weekend approaches.
A 1963 game between the Bears and Detroit Lions, played at Wrigley Field, also featured a kickoff temperature of just 1 degree.
The coldest game in Bears history was actually played in Minneapolis, with the Bears and Vikings facing off in a contest where the kickoff temperature was minus-2 degrees.
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Here is the full list of coldest games in Bears’ history, with home games listed in bold.
12/3/72: Bears at Vikings (-2 degrees, wind chill negative-15)
12/18/83: Packers at Bears (1 degree, wind chill negative-17)
12/10/78: Packers at Bears (1 degree, wind chill negative-16)
12/15/63: Lions at Bears (1 degree, wind chill negative-15)
11/28/76: Bears at Packers (2 degrees, wind chill negative-16)
12/22/08: Packers at Bears (2 degrees, wind chill negative-13)
12/11/77: Packers at Bears (3 degrees, wind chill negative-10)
12/20/81: Broncos at Bears (6 degrees, wind chill negative-9)
12/10/95: Bears at Bengals (8 degrees, wind chill negative-9)
12/9/13: Cowboys at Bears (8 degrees, wind chill negative-9)
Three other games also had kickoff temperatures of 8 degrees above zero. In the 13 games the Bears have played when the game time temperature has been below 10 degrees, they are 8-5.
