The Rams win the franchise’s second Super Bowl with Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald making the game-winning plays.
A fun Super Bowl game unfolded for us on Sunday, a game full of explosive plays and great defensive plays throughout the game. The Rams came in as the heavy favorites with the Super Bowl being played in their house, they had the better roster, the better coach, and they had all of the momentum. But the Bengals did not care, they were underdogs in the AFC Divisional and AFC Championship games and came away with wins on the road in a hostile environment.
The game was started pretty slow, the Rams and Bengals couldn’t move on each other on their first possessions and it led to a punt and a turnover on downs. The first quarter’s first score was a long touchdown to Odell Beckham Jr, who seemed to be taking over the game for Los Angeles.
The Bengals then went down the field on a 48-yard play to Ja’Marr Chase and seemed to be in prime position to score a game-tying touchdown, but the Ram’s defense held up and only gave up a field goal. The Rams got the ball back and drove down the field at the beginning of the second quarter and got yet another touchdown to Cooper Kupp who beat Eli Apple on a play-action pass.
Now the Bengals were down by 10 after a missed extra point and they had about five and a half minutes to get some points on the board. The Bengals took advantage of the aggressiveness of the pass-rushing front of the Rams and ran with Joe Mixon down the field, Mixon had two 10+ yard runs on the drive and it set up his trick-play touchdown.
The Rams got the ball back with time before the half and were on the move until Odell Beckham Jr. went down with a non-contact leg injury. It was devastating to the Rams who were rolling with OBJ on offense. On the very next play, Matthew Stafford threw an interception in the back of the end zone, and the Bengals ended the half.
The halftime was amazing with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, 50 Cent, and Kendrick Lamar all showing out. If you didn’t care about the game and were born between 1980 and 2000, it was an insane halftime show.
The second half started with a bang, the Bengals had the ball on their 25-yard line and Burrow escaped pressure to find Tee Higgins for a 75-yard bomb. For Bengals fans, it was the play they needed, an explosive play to take the lead away from a team that was reeling from losing their star teammate. But for the Rams fans and the rest of the NFL world, the officials missed a crucial offensive pass interference call against Higgins who grabbed the facemask of Jalen Ramsey and shoved him to the turn right as he went to go catch the ball.
The only big thing which happened after the long touchdown was the two field goal each team exchanged and the Bengals making Aaron Donald angry. When Aaron Donald got angry he decided to go nuts, getting four quarterback pressures on the next three Bengal’s possessions. The Bengals couldn’t get anything going offensively as Ram’s pass rush got six sacks in the second half.
Then the Rams got the ball with about five minutes left in the fourth quarter and Stafford and Kupp turned into Montana and Rice. Stafford found Kupp four times on the drive, including this no-look pass to Kupp on a critical point in the game.
The Rams finally got to the goal line and had a minute to score, they went for a QB sneak on the first play to waste time so the Bengals had to spend a time out. They then looked back to Cooper Kupp and where he was aligned in the formation and saw he was one on one with Eli Apple and threw him the ball to complete one of the most important catches in Ram’s franchise history.
The Bengals got the ball back with about one minute left on the clock, they got the ball to mid-field on a quick pass to Ja’Marr Chase and then they got too smart for their own good. The Bengals started to run the ball, they ran it with Samje Perine twice and the second rush was on third and two, where Aaron Donald made a great play by swallowing up Perine before he could extend the ball for the goal line. On fourth down ready for the Super Bowl, it was Aaron Donald’s time to get his ring.
The Rams finally got their ring after a 22-year hiatus from winning in St.Louis back in the 1999-2000 season. It was a fun Super Bowl, and it was weird to think about how many people got their ring finally after so many years of heartbreak.
Now with the season over, the NFL moves to the offseason where the contenders and up-and-comers all are trying to get to the Super Bowl and everyone has a shot.
