Bears relish frigid weather

The frigid weather was the same for both teams, but the Bears, just as they expected, seemed to handle it much better than their visitors from Florida.

The Bears enjoyed the 19-degree temperature and 9-degree wind chill so much that they're hoping for more of the same Thursday to welcome their domed visitors from New Orleans.

"It's what we are," coach Lovie Smith said. "We're in Chicago in December. It's always cold here. We realize that. We want everyone else coming in to know that.

"It helps the more you guys talk about it for New Orleans, too. It should be a little bit colder hopefully Thursday night. We play our best football when it's like that."

Last season the Bears won two of three home games in December, losing only to the eventual Super Bowl champion Giants 21-16 but defeating the Packers 35-7 and the Saints 33-25. The Packers come to town 11 days after the Saints for a Monday nighter on Dec. 22.

"Everyone has a homefield advantage," Smith said. "If you talk to teams that aren't from Chicago, believe me, they don't want to come to Chicago this time of the year to play football.

"For us, it's a part of our everyday life, so we have to be able to play football in these conditions. We practice in it for the most part and it's no issue for us."

Being on the right side of the final score also helps.

"You've got to love it," said Bears quarterback Kyle Orton, who completed 20 of 34 passes for 219 yards, 2 touchdowns and a passer rating of 85.3, his best game in six weeks. "It's going to be like that, so you might as well embrace it. We get to practice in it, and we feel like we have an advantage. We feel like we can run the football, and it seems like our defense plays well in this type of weather."

Cornerback Corey Graham, who played high school football in Buffalo, N.Y., and collegiately at New Hampshire, didn't seem inconvenienced at all by the conditions.

"I expected it to be a lot worse," he said. "I didn't get cold the whole game. But from what I'm hearing, it's supposed to be a lot worse Thursday. That's good. We're used to that type of weather. It helps us out - at least we like to believe that. We don't mind the cold. That's what we do. We just go out there and play."