1985 NFC Championship
Los Angeles Rams vs. Chicago Bears
January 12, 1986

After watching Eric Dickerson run for a playoff record 248 yards and the Rams beat the Cowboys 20-0 in the divisional playoffs the previous week from my grandparents’ condo, I had high hopes for LA to beat the big bad Bears in the NFC Championship. Instead, they lost 24-0, and it was a pretty miserable day for me. This game is thought of by most as a lopsided blowout given the shutout score, but in actuality the Rams had their chances to give Chicago a run for their money. With Chicago only up 10-0 right before the half, the Rams had driven down to the bears 5 yard line. They took too long on a play and then tried to call timeout with 1 second left to kick a field goal. The refs didn’t give them the timeout, and the half was over. Had they gotten a chance to kick the field goal, the score would have been 10-3 at half time, and they would have gotten some momentum.

Instead the Bears came out in the 3rd quarter and went up 17-0. The Rams also had a 60 yard pass from Dieter Brock to Ron Brown to the 15 yard line get called back on a questionable call(Brown had stepped out of bounds but was pushed out as a result of illegal contact or pass interference which wasn’t called.) Anyhow, the Rams choked in this game when they were one of the only teams that was at least good enough to beat the bears(they came back to Chicago the following year and got their revenge against them in an epic monday night game.) This was really a heartbreaking loss for probably the best Ram team of the 80’s, and ever since this game I have always hated the Bears.