Super Bowl: How the Rams Beat the Bengals to Win the Super Bowl (Published 2022) (2024)

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The Rams clinch the Super Bowl with a final stop of Joe Burrow.

Then, Burrow, the Bengals’ young star who had won a collegiate national championship with Louisiana State, was stopped on his final play and forced to throw an incomplete pass as he faced pressure from Aaron Donald, the Rams’ pass rusher who is one of the best players in the league.

Kupp was named the game’s Most Valuable Player, finishing with eight catches for 92 yards and two scores.

“I just don’t feel deserving of this,” Kupp said after the game, once the “Coop” cheers subsided long enough for him to speak on the field to the crowd. “God is so good. I’m just so thankful for the guys I get to be around, for the coaches, my family. I don’t know what to say.”

It is the second Super Bowl win in franchise history for the Rams, who won their first in 2000, when the team was based in St. Louis and defeated the Tennessee Titans in Atlanta.

“I just can’t say enough about how much I l love this group,” said the Rams’ coach, Sean McVay, who at 36 became the youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl. He added: “There’s something really powerful about being a part of something bigger than yourself. And you can see that in the way that these guys competed.”

Los Angeles had spent much of the second half behind Cincinnati after the Bengals started the third quarter with a long touchdown pass and attempted to contain Los Angeles for as much of the second half as possible.

On the first play of the second half, Burrow tossed a 75-yard touchdown to receiver Tee Higgins to give the Bengals a 17-13 lead. Higgins appeared to grasp the face mask of Jalen Ramsey, the Rams’ Pro Bowl defensive back, on the play, but there was no call for offensive pass interference on the field.

On the following possession, Stafford, who was traded to the Rams from Detroit before the season began, threw a pass that was intended for receiver Ben Skowronek, but the ball caromed off his hands and into the grasp of Bengals defensive back Chidobe Awuzie.

The Rams went all in on a potential Super Bowl run this season, trading draft capital for experienced superstars. They bolstered an offense that already boasted Kupp, the most productive receiver in football, by bringing in Odell Beckham Jr., the former Browns receiver, in the middle of the regular season.

And it paid off.

Beckham caught five touchdowns for the Rams in the regular season and had the first score on Sunday, a 17-yard catch that he celebrated by doing the moonwalk on the turf.

Beckham injured his left knee later in the first half on a noncontact injury and did not return.

Bengals fans roared through much of the game even though Los Angeles was in its home stadium. The roars grew louder in the second half — helped perhaps by an electric halftime show that included a bevy of superstar hip-hop artists, led by the Southern California native Dr. Dre.

The Bengals had come from behind in the A.F.C. championship game to defeat Kansas City. But Burrow, despite the heroics that had gotten the Bengals to the Super Bowl, could not muster another comeback. He appeared to injure a knee late in the second half but remained in the game.

The Rams’ defense, highlighted by the ferocious pass rushers Donald and Von Miller, tightened up their pressure up front, sacking Burrow five times in the third quarter to keep the game close.

And it was Donald, the player the Rams had built their team around, who sealed the win.

“I wanted it so bad. I dreamed this, man.” Donald, with tears in his eyes, said on the NBC broadcast after the game. He looked up at the blue and yellow confetti cascading on the field as he was asked possible retirement.

“I’m just in the moment right now,” he said. He added: “This is the promise that I made to my daughter when she was 5. We’re just going to play in the confetti for a minute, and I’m just going to live in the moment.”

The Super Bowl in photos: The sights of the Rams’ championship win.

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‘It was poetic, man.’

“For the offense to be able to find a way, and Aaron finishing it off, it was poetic, man,” he told Mike Tirico of NBC following the win.

Receiver Cooper Kupp, who had eight receptions and two touchdowns, was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.

“It just comes down to this team, the way we prepared,” Kupp said. “I don’t feel deserving to this. I don’t know what to say.”

The team’s owner, E. Stanley Kroenke, spent heavily to move the Rams from St. Louis back to California. SoFi Stadium, the team’s new home, cost about $5 billion and opened at the start of the 2020 season.

Kroenke said he was “really proud” of his players and McVay.

“But in terms of building this stadium, it turned out all right,” he said.

The Bengals fall short of a fairy tale ending, but still impress.

Not after Joe Burrow injured his knee last season and could not complete his rookie season. Not after Cincinnati used a top-five draft pick to select Ja’Marr Chase, Burrow’s favorite target at Louisiana State, instead of solidifying its offensive line, one of the worst in the league. Not while playing in the competitive A.F.C. North, where the flashy Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson and the rebuilt Cleveland Browns were supposed to rule.

The Bengals overcame those factors and made it to the Super Bowl, and they were a few plays away from winning it. Their 23-20 defeat to the Rams, while stinging, showed that Cincinnati can remain a force for years to come.

Had those plays at the end of the game gone differently, the Bengals would have hoisted the Lombardi Trophy in the Rams’ home stadium. Instead, the Los Angeles players jumped for joy on the field and ran into the end zone as time expired.

In the fourth quarter, with a 20-16 lead, Bengals receiver Tyler Boyd dropped a pass with large catch-and-run potential on third down, forcing Cincinnati to punt with over six minutes remaining. That kept Cincinnati from converting and chewing up clock. The Rams’ offense, with newfound life, marched downfield to the red zone. On two different plays, penalties committed by the Cincinnati defense gave the Rams extra chances to strike. One of them, a 1-yard touchdown pass to Cooper Kupp, succeeded, giving Los Angeles the game-winning score with 1 minute 25 seconds left. An incomplete pass on fourth down on Cincinnati’s last-ditch possession ended any chances of a Cinderella story.

“It’s a special group,” Bengals Coach Zac Taylor said in his postgame news conference. “It’s rare that you get to coach a team like this. I’m proud of the way they fought. I thought they did a lot for our team, our organization and for our city and they need to be really proud of that.”

It’s not as sweet as a fairy tale, but that the Bengals reached this pinnacle is its own kind of success. They won only four games last season and wallowed toward the bottom of the league standings. Burrow, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 draft, was meant to revive a franchise that had not won a playoff game since 1991. Instead, his debut season was defined by constant sacks behind one of the N.F.L.’s worst offensive lines, and he tore his left anterior cruciate ligament in Week 11.

With the fifth pick in the 2021 draft, the Bengals could have shored up their offensive line with Oregon’s Penei Sewell or Northwestern’s Rashawn Slater. But, at Burrow’s request, Cincinnati selected Chase, who won a national championship with Burrow at L.S.U. in the 2019 season. It could have been a mistake, and some thought it was, because the Bengals already had a solid receiving corps with Boyd and Tee Higgins.

But that decision ignited this Super Bowl run, and produced an exciting, young offense. With running back Joe Mixon, who rushed for 1,205 yards and 13 touchdowns, and a defense rebuilt with hardworking free agents, the Bengals won 10 games. Chase won the N.F.L.’s Offensive Rookie of the Year Award after posting 1,455 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns in the regular season. Burrow won the Comeback Player of the Year Award, rebounding from his gruesome knee injury to throw for 4,611 yards and 34 touchdowns. (His affinity for fancy sunglasses inspired the flood of fake ones on Sunday.)

In the A.F.C. North, the Bengals bested the injury-riddled Ravens, the inconsistent Browns and the underperforming Steelers, earning the No. 4 seed in the playoffs. Then this young team showed its resilience by overcoming deficits against the top-seeded Titans, who tied a postseason record with nine sacks of Burrow, and against Kansas City — both road games — to reach the Super Bowl.

“These playoff games weren’t easy, and even beyond that, we had some tough games,” Taylor said. “Our guys proved that they can do a lot of great in those situations and put us in these moments.”

And in the global spotlight, they remained calm. Instead of being distracted by the lures of Los Angeles, they kept to themselves. While the city partied around them, the players said they watched Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts. Taylor said he left his hotel room only for practices, team meetings and a trip to In-N-Out Burger. The two-year turnaround the franchise performed was impressive, and it will set the standard for the Bengals going forward. No longer the surprise contenders, for next year’s Super Bowl, they’ll be expected to be there.

“We’re a young team and you’d like to think we’d be back in this situation multiple times over the course of the next few years,” Burrow said. “You take this and you let if fuel you for the rest of our careers.”

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Odell Beckham Jr.’s long journey to his first Super Bowl ended with a knee injury.

Beckham was helped to the sideline and into the blue medical tent before being led to the locker room by an athletic trainer who carried his helmet. Moments after Beckham disappeared from view, Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford forced a throw to the end zone that was intercepted by Bengals safety Jessie Bates III.

But before Beckham left the field, he delivered the game’s first touchdown. He earned the 17-yard score with his release from Bengals cornerback Mike Hilton off the line of scrimmage. He then performed the moonwalk in the end zone. All signs pointed to a big night for the 29-year-old receiver, who followed a bumpy road to his first Super Bowl appearance.

The Rams offense at first seemed to stall with Beckham out, limiting Stafford’s options and allowing the Bengals to devote more attention to Los Angeles’s top receiver, Cooper Kupp. But the Rams rallied late in the game with a 15-play, 79-yard touchdown drive, capped by a 1-yard touchdown pass to Kupp that sealed the 23-20 win.

Beckham tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in 2020 when he was with the Cleveland Browns. The team did not confirm the extent of Beckham’s injury after the game. Fellow receiver Robert Woods, who tore an A.C.L. in practice the same day in November that Beckham arrived in Los Angeles, said he spent some time alone with Beckham in the locker room after the team came out for the second half and held him.

“Being able to hold him and say, ‘I am right with you; I will be here every step, every rehab day,’ ” Woods said. “He’s a competitor. I know he will be back even stronger, and hopefully he is back with us.”

It had been a long journey for Beckham, now in his eighth season, to reach the Super Bowl. Before this postseason, the only playoff game he had played in was the Giants’ loss to Green Bay during the 2016 season after several players’ infamous boat trip to Miami.

Beckham became a rookie sensation with his one-handed catch against the Cowboys in 2014, but the Giants traded him to Cleveland five years after drafting him No. 12 overall. His tenure with the Browns was similarly turbulent. The team released him in early November after his father posted a video on social media expressing frustration with how his son was being used in the Browns offense, paving the way for Beckham to join the Rams.

The Rams initially thought Beckham would be a nice addition to their offense — yet another star on the team’s roster — but his role quickly became bigger than anticipated after Woods’ injury. Beckham

became a key offensive weapon as the team built momentum in its Super Bowl run. He contributed 113 receiving yards in the N.F.C. Championship Game against the 49ers, and he was shaping up to be a major part of the Rams’ game plan against the Bengals. On Sunday night, he had two catches for 52 yards and a touchdown before leaving the game.

The loss of Beckham, followed by Stafford’s interception at the end of the first half, was a devastating sequence that seemed to swing momentum away from the Rams. The start of the second half wasn’t much better: The Bengals immediately took the lead on a 75-yard touchdown, then Stafford threw his second interception on the next play. The pass was intended for Ben Skowronek, a player who would not have had as large of a role had Beckham remained in the game. The Rams fell behind 20-13 after that turnover.

As Beckham left the field, pain and disappointment were written all over his face. But while the Rams didn’t continue their march downfield at that moment, they eventually found a way. Stafford and Kupp somehow found space in the tight throwing windows made even tighter by Beckham’s absence. In the game’s final moments, TV cameras caught Beckham rejoining his team on the sideline, and this time he was crying.

Aaron Donald has likely sealed the Super Bowl for the Rams.

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Rams get a go-ahead touchdown with less than 2 minutes left.

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Stressed about the economy? These ads are for you.

Rocket Mortgage aired a nightmare scenario for many people shopping for a home, narrated by the actress Anna Kendrick. Barbie tries to buy her Dream House, but is swamped in a “super competitive market” that also includes dolls such as “Better Offer Betty,” “Cash Offer Carl” and “House Flipper Skipper.”

“You vultures,” Kendrick exclaims. “You’re going to start a bidding war!”

Barbie wins the house, while the others must consider a “fixer-upper castle” that “has good bones but really bad neighbors” (it’s Castle Grayskull, from “He-Man”).

All this in a year when Super Bowl ad space cost as much as $7 million for 30 seconds. In the game’s inaugural year in 1967, the same space cost as little as $37,500, or about $316,000 when adjusted for inflation.

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Dr. Evil. Cable Guy. Lindsay Lohan. Comeback kids are crowding the commercial breaks.

For General Motors, Mike Myers reprised his role as Dr. Evil from the 25-year-old “Austin Powers” film, except he was now Dr. EV-il and plugging the automaker’s electric vehicle plans. Verizon has brought back Jim Carrey as the Cable Guy from the 1996 movie. Chevrolet orchestrated a “Sopranos” reunion for its Silverado commercial, titled “The New Generation.”

In the first Super Bowl commercial from the potato chip company Lay’s in 17 years, titled “Golden Memories,” the comedians Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd revisit their past just before Rogen’s wedding … to a ghoul who had haunted his first house. Lindsay Lohan makes light of her struggles with addiction more than 15 years earlier in a commercial for Planet Fitness, surprising Dennis Rodman, Danny Trejo, William Shatner and the paparazzi with her exercise-induced glow.

After retiring in 2014, the E-Trade baby (voiced by the middle-aged comedian Pete Holmes) returned to save consumers who, god forbid, have been taking financial advice from memes.

N.F.L. was ‘aware’ Eminem planned to kneel during halftime performance.

The move was an apparent nod to the former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee during the playing of the national anthem during the 2016 season to protest police brutality and racial inequity. Other N.F.L. players followed suit, prompting debate within the league about whether those players should be penalized, and drawing rebuke from the president at the time, Donald J. Trump.

After Kaepernick opted out of his 49ers contract in 2017 and was unable to find another quarterbacking job, he accused the N.F.L. of colluding to blacklist him but settled the suit with the league in 2019.

The dispute led many artists to avoid the halftime show in support of Kaepernick.

A league spokesman, Brian McCarthy, said on Sunday that the N.F.L. was aware that Eminem was going to kneel because officials “watched it during rehearsals this week.”

McCarthy said that players, coaches and personnel were free to have taken a knee before Sunday’s game and that no one has been disciplined for taking a knee.

Roc Nation declined to comment on what Eminem intended to signal.

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The Bengals use a big break to gain lead after three quarters.

The Bengals have given up five sacks in the third quarter after only allowing one in the first half.

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Scenes from around Los Angeles during the Super Bowl.