Tag: Super Bowl MVP

NFL Stat Oddity: Super Bowl LVII

~ scottkacsmar ~ Leave a comment

After a season filled with low-scoring island games, the 2022 NFL season finished with a very good 38-35 Super Bowl that may have been one fewer flag away from an instant top five classic. Either way, Super Bowl LVII made history as the first Super Bowl where both teams scored at least 35 points.

It also rewrote the standard again for what kind of teams we can expect to win a Super Bowl, and no surprise that is thanks to Patrick Mahomes, who went home with MVP honors after throwing three touchdowns and making very few mistakes.

  • It took 57 years, but Mahomes is the first quarterback to lead the league in passing yards and win the Super Bowl in the same season.
  • Mahomes is the first quarterback since Kurt Warner (1999 Rams) to win MVP, first-team All Pro, and Super Bowl MVP in the same season. MVPs were on an 0-9 Super Bowl run and first-team All-Pro quarterbacks were 0-8 before Mahomes’ win.
  • The Chiefs join the 2006 Colts and 2011 Giants as the only teams since 1989 (and likely ever) to win a Super Bowl with a defense ranked lower than 15th in points per drive allowed. The Chiefs were No. 21 this year and won this game despite allowing 35 points on 10 drives.
  • Mahomes won this Super Bowl with a cap hit of 17% this season – the previous high for a Super Bowl-winning quarterback was Steve Young (13.1%) on the 1994 49ers, the beginning of the cap era.
  • The 2022 Chiefs are just one of seven Super Bowl winners to have a minus-3 or worse turnover differential in the regular season. But they were plus-4 in the playoffs.
  • The 2022 Chiefs are the first defense to win a Super Bowl after allowing 30 touchdown passes in the regular season. They allowed 33, four more than any other defense this year.

But in winning 38-35, the Chiefs did it their way. Jalen Hurts is now 15-2 when he leads the Eagles to at least 27 points, and both losses are to Mahomes, a f’n unicorn who just solidified himself this weekend as a first-ballot Hall of Famer with two Super Bowl MVPs and two MVP awards in his first six seasons. The only other two quarterbacks to do that needed 11 (Tom Brady) or 12 (Joe Montana) seasons to achieve it.

For the fourth time in the last nine Super Bowls, we had a team come back to win after trailing by double digits in the second half. That happened zero times in the first 48 Super Bowls.

I’d call it your classic Chiefs comeback against the front-running Eagles, akin to Super Bowl LIV against the 49ers, but this game was actually quite different. But by and large, this was a Kansas City script with a couple plot twists along the way.

This season in Stat Oddity:

The Least Valuable Player: The Turf

Before we get into the recap, the worst part of the game was the field surface in Arizona. If they really spent so much time and money growing this grass, then it was a waste as players were slipping all night. It did not really affect the outcome, and ultimately the game still had 73 points, but it sure would have been nice to see a better playing surface for the biggest game of the year.

This stadium has hosted some great big games, and god knows the Cardinals aren’t using it much in January and February, so when they bring the Super Bowl back to Arizona, hopefully the field will be better than this.

The First Quarter: Early Fireworks

Right from the start this was looking like an explosive Super Bowl with both offenses scoring a touchdown with their go-to players getting it done with Jalen Hurts on the QB sneak and Travis Kelce on a well-designed 18-yard route.

But you did also see some big hits, which became common in this game too. There was a lot of quality play all around, but an offensive pass interference penalty short-circuited the Eagles’ second possession for the first punt of the night.

So much for Mahomes and Kelce not being healthy, because the duo hooked up for a quick 60 yards on two drives to start the game. Kelce had just 23 yards against the Eagles last year, but you could throw that result out the window in this one as he still found ways to get wide open early.

But the Eagles would do a better job after those first three catches, and they also did a good job of holding down most of the other receivers on the night. Just enough pressure on Mahomes nearly forced an interception on a third down, but the Chiefs settled for a 42-yard field goal instead of going for a fourth-and-3.

This was probably Andy Reid’s biggest mistake of the night as the Eagles have been the more aggressive team and probably would have gone for that fourth down. Harrison Butker hit the left upright with his kick as he can often do on lower-pressure plays, and there went a golden opportunity for Kansas City’s first lead as the game went into the second quarter tied 7-7.

The Second Quarter: Eagles Do Their Thing

Over four months ago I was pointing out how historic the 2022 Eagles were in the second quarter. But even when the team was 6-0, I thought it was odd how they dominated that one quarter so much while not being special in the other three.

At 8-0, the Eagles had scored 133 points in the second quarter, the most points any team has had in any quarter through eight games in NFL history. This is why the Eagles were the third team since the 1970 merger to not trail in its first eight games. But this was clearly not going to sustainable. Would it be fatal down the stretch in a tight game and when the Eagles faced a legitimate quarterback for a change?

By season’s end, the Eagles were +116 in the second quarter and just +17 in the other three quarters combined. I did not think that was a good formula for the Chiefs, who we know can come back with the best of them.

But the second quarter was both as good as it got for the Eagles and a costly one as one huge mistake would haunt them.

The Eagles started their favorite quarter with Hurts taking a chance deep to A.J. Brown, and what looked like it may lead to defensive pass interference actually just laid in perfectly to the receiver for a 45-yard touchdown bomb.

The Chiefs went three-and-out after JuJu Smith-Schuster was clearly interfered with on third-and-8, but there was no penalty for some reason. More on that later.

After Hurts converted a third-and-8 with a brilliant scramble move, he really looked like the ultimate dual threat who was having a great game in his first Super Bowl. But then came the moment where the Eagles may have blown this one. One thing the team really struggled with all night was running the ball with the trio of backs, who combined for just 17 carries for 45 yards. If you thought Miles Sanders sucked against the Chiefs last year with 7 carries for 13 yards, he only had 7 carries for 16 yards in this one.

But on a second-and-1, it was Kenneth Gainwell who was stopped short to bring up third-and-1. No worries, the team who has turned the quarterback sneak into an even bigger cheat code would pick it up with ease. But that doesn’t happen when you get penalized for a false start as the timing was off for the Eagles. Huge mistake. On third-and-medium, Hurts tried a quarterback draw, but he just lost the ball on an unforced error, and Nick Bolton was there for the 36-yard scoop and score to tie the game.

It is so hard to win a Super Bowl when your offense coughs up a turnover for a touchdown, and that is the third time this season the Eagles did that in a game they went on to lose. The other time they just had four turnovers against Dallas, but this ended up being the only turnover in the whole game.

I was curious to see how Hurts responded to that blunder, but he did a great job and used his legs well to convert a ballsy fourth-and-5 with a 28-yard run by slipping a tackle. He also got another fourth-down conversion by drawing the Chiefs offsides in the red zone. The drive fittingly ended with Hurts running in his second touchdown on a successful draw to take a 21-14 lead with 2:20 left.

This was the part of the game in Super Bowl LV where the Chiefs really blew it against Tampa Bay. They had to answer here but it was another bad drive with Mahomes scrambling on a third down and apparently aggravating his ankle injury. He looked to be grimacing in pain much worse than he did when he initially had the injury against Jacksonville, and it was much worse than the third quarter against the Bengals when he tweaked it.

Chad Henne was apparently warming up, and this just felt like the Eagles catching another break with an injured quarterback. The Chiefs had the ball for just 8:06 in the first half as the Eagles dominated with long drives while Kansas City really did not show a lot after that hot opening drive. That makes 16 points for the offense in the last six quarters of Super Bowl action.

Things were looking poor for the Chiefs after getting outscored 17-7 in the quarter, and it could have been much worse without Hurts’ unforced error. It also would be nice if DeVonta Smith can make a cleaner catch down the sideline after his 35-yard grab was overturned to incomplete after a lengthy review. I can understand why they overturned it, but I was still surprised that they thought the evidence was conclusive enough to overturn the call on the field of a 35-yard catch.

That was a big reversal as it led to only a field goal and 24-14 lead for the Eagles at halftime. Still, this was looking like a Philadelphia script with an injured Mahomes even if the pass rush in this game was minimized.

Rihanna > Beyonce, forever and always, but moving onto the second half.

The Third Quarter: Here Come the Chiefs

With a half-hour halftime and Mr. White in the house to inject Mahomes with some Crystal Blue Persuasion, the MVP was able to return to the game and still looked good. The run game was also looking good for the Chiefs again, and Mahomes even took a play himself 14 yards after it looked like the Eagles were surprised he could still move like that.

Two plays later, Isiah Pacheco was in the end zone for a touchdown, and we had a game again at 24-21.

On the ensuing drive, Bolton thought he had another fumble touchdown, but the refs got the call right of a bang-bang play and no catch, no fumble for Sanders and the Eagles. What ensued was another painfully long drive with some incredible completions from Hurts to Dallas Goedert, including a third-and-14 conversion that took forever to review, but they got the call right as it was a catch this time.

The quarterback sneak worked for another fourth-and-1 for the Eagles, and this 7:45 drive was threatening to put the Eagles back up 10, but the pass defense stepped up and made a stop. The Eagles had a couple fourth downs already converted, and I was surprised that Nick Sirianni did not go for a fourth-and-6 at the Kansas City 15, understanding how much more valuable a 10-point lead is instead of 6 vs. 3.

But the Eagles settled for the 33-yard field goal and a 27-21 lead despite taking half the quarter with that drive. You can say Sirianni coached a pretty good Super Bowl when his biggest mistake in three quarters was not going for a fourth-and-6.

But with the Chiefs driving towards midfield, you could see where this one was heading.

The Fourth Quarter: Chiefs Do It Again

This postseason has sucked ass for drama, but maybe we would get something good here as it was the 18th Super Bowl in the last 20 years to be within one score in the fourth quarter. This postseason’s only fourth-quarter lead change was Jaguars vs. Chargers, and that was on the final play of the game. We needed something more dramatic here, and we absolutely got it.

JuJu, who I loved back in Pittsburgh his first two years and not so much after, was huge on this drive as he had three straight catches to put the ball at the 9-yard line. Incredibly, Marquez Valdes-Scantling had one target and no catches in the game after being so good against the Bengals. Kadarius Toney also had no touches on offense, so the Chiefs were getting almost everything out of Kelce, JuJu, and the running game.

But on a third-and-3, the Eagles completely blew a coverage and Toney was left wide open, not unlike his first NFL touchdown with the Chiefs against Jacksonville earlier this season. Andy Reid did it again. The Chiefs made the extra point to go up 28-27 and – STOP THE COUNT – they had their first lead and a lead for the 101st time in the last 102 games.

It also meant the 2022 Chiefs are the first team to have a fourth-quarter lead in 20 games in one season. But would they hang onto it to join the 1984 49ers and 2013 Seahawks as the only teams to do it in at least 19 games and win the Super Bowl? That is exclusive company for sure.

With the Eagles unable to run, it was going to be on Hurts’ shoulders, and he does not have the track record yet in these situations. Sure enough, the Eagles went three-and-out and this thing was going all Kansas City’s way. Toney returned the ensuing punt, after a little mix-up at the beginning, for 65 yards, nearly housing it, which likely would have earned him the MVP honors for this game. But his impact was felt as it was the longest punt return in Super Bowl history.

Not bad for a Kansas City team that had its longest punt return of the season against the Bengals (by Skyy Moore) to set up their game-winning drive last game out. Now they more than doubled that with this one by Toney. Speaking of Moore, he finished off this drive with yet another blown coverage by the Eagles as he was left all alone for a 4-yard touchdown. Way too easy.

Should the Chiefs have gone for two at 9:22 left? I think it was a little early to get the full benefit of that one, but I fully understand the argument by doing it. Still, it was 35-27 and this is out of the Eagles’ comfort zone.

However, when the QB sneak has been unstoppable all night, and the slants to Brown are open all night, the Eagles quickly moved the ball. Smith got wide open for a 45-yard bomb that if thrown a little better, he would have walked in for a touchdown. But on the next play, Hurts set a Super Bowl record with his third rushing touchdown at the quarterback position, giving him a record 18 for the season. He even finished the drive off with the game-tying two-point conversion as the league may have to interfere with the rule book to stop the Eagles’ dominance in short yardage. No more push sneaks in the near future? We’ll see.

But we were all tied up at 35 with 5:15 left. With the leaked script (read: a funny meme that some take too seriously) calling for a 37-34 win by the Eagles, you may have had it in the back of your mind that maybe the Chiefs screw this up after three straight touchdowns and the Eagles do win this one on a last-second field goal for a 38-35 win. The internet would go ape shit over that.

But no, Mahomes really is just different. He found Kelce for another catch that allowed him to hit his over (81 yards) by two yards, which cost me $700 in parlay wins, but no sour grapes here. Kelce now has nine straight games in the playoffs with over 75 receiving yards, three more than anybody else. Pacheco was able to convert the ensuing third-and-1 for a 10-yard gain.

Then came a definitive play. Mahomes scrambled right down the middle of the field for a 26-yard gain, looking pretty spry in the process and putting the Chiefs in field goal range. The rest of this drive was going to be very interesting strategy as the Eagles had three clock stoppages left, and the Chiefs could not afford to give them the ball back in a 38-35 game with nearly two full minutes left. Not after how easy the Eagles scored on the last drive.

The Chiefs even screwed this up with conservative play. A screen to JuJu gained nothing and brought up third-and-8. Mahomes just kind of lobbed one towards the end zone for JuJu on third down, which would have saved the Eagles’ last timeout, but there came the flag. Defensive holding on James Bradberry. Automatic first down.

I get why they called it, but I have to agree with FOX’s Greg Olsen. That is a very soft call on a night where the refs were swallowing the whistle. Bradberry tugged on the jersey, but the throw was also way off from the receiver, and I don’t think it was restrictive enough to say it drastically altered the play for the Chiefs. They got bailed out of a bad sequence with that call, and now the game was going to have a shit ending because the Chiefs were just going to set up the field goal.

For all the talk about referee Carl Cheffers screwing the Chiefs over in the past, his crew called just 3 penalties for 14 yards on the Chiefs in this game. He had gone 12 straight games calling at least 92 yards worth of penalties on both teams in Kansas City games, and 12 straight where the Chiefs had over 47.5 penalty yards.

So this was a surprise, and worse, there were just three penalties in the game on post-snap action, and they were all on the Eagles. The other six penalties were all your pre-snap things like false start, delay of game, neutral zone infraction, and offsides.

The refs tried to stay out of the story this week, but they had a huge impact on how this game would end. The part that pisses me off the most is how can they justify not calling the DPI on the Eagles on a JuJu coverage play on third down in the second quarter, but then they call this ticky tack crap? This inconsistency is what drives people nuts.

The Eagles did the right thing by offering the touchdown to the Chiefs, but Jerick McKinnon was wise to go down in bounds short of the end zone. Mahomes ended up taking two knees for minus-7 yards, meaning the Chiefs had 165 rushing yards before that happened. That is another big running day against the Eagles, who had their biggest statistical weakness at stopping the run this year (24th in yards per carry allowed), and last year the Chiefs ran for 200 yards on them for just the second time in the Mahomes era. This was another outstanding running day when you consider the Chiefs only had eight drives to score their 31 points. The Chiefs only had the ball for 24:13 and still scored 38 points. The only other time that has happened in the playoffs was when Andrew Luck led a 38-10 comeback against Reid’s 2013 Chiefs in a 45-44 win despite having the ball for 22:27.

For the anticlimactic finish, Butker just had to not go Blair Walsh and make a 27-yard field goal. He did it, and the Chiefs led 38-35 with 8 seconds left.

The Eagles returned the squib kick 11 yards before Gainwell gave himself up. Six seconds were eventually put back on the clock after it went down to 4 seconds, but either the Eagles didn’t seem to realize that, or they just blew the situation. There was no way Hurts could throw a Hail Mary over 65 yards with his shoulder injury, so the call should have been a quick pass to the sideline to get closer, or you do the laterals. Instead, Hurts held the ball and just threw a duck well short of the end zone and to no one in particular to end the game.

Conclusion

The Chiefs did it. Lesser defense filled with rookies, QB taking up 17% of the cap, injured skill players – none of it mattered. They also won this as a team as Mahomes’ 182 passing yards are tied for his fifth fewest in a game. He got the big run support, he got the fumble return touchdown, and he got the longest punt return in Super Bowl history. Mahomes was the right call to win Super Bowl MVP for making very few mistakes all night and still leading the offense to 31 points on eight drives with a missed field goal, but he still won this with the kind of team support we usually don’t see behind an MVP in a big game like this.

For the Eagles, it is a letdown for sure. I can say Hurts has still never beat a good quarterback on a good team in the NFL, but this game raised my respect for him. The fumble was an unfortunate blunder, but those happen. Mahomes just did it against the Bengals two weeks ago. Hurts was leading the MVP race most of the night as his run game and defense severely let him down as the 70-sack defense proved to be a paper tiger in the end. They were rarely tested this year, and when they faced the Chiefs, they folded with no sacks, very little pressure, and those blown coverages in the red zone are inexcusable.

Incredibly, the Eagles (70) and Chiefs (55) led the NFL in sacks this year with 125 between them, yet the only two in this game were on scramble plays where Hurts twice ran out of bounds for a small loss. Not even legitimate sacks in my view.

Mahomes got the ball off in 2.69 seconds on average according to Next Gen Stats. He is now 47-4 when he gets the ball out in under 2.9 seconds, so this game was above average for his release time even if it wasn’t quite the 2.32 seconds from last year’s meeting.

To close a week where we celebrated LeBron James breaking the NBA’s all-time scoring record that lasted almost 40 years, we just witnessed another great achievement for Mahomes in winning a Super Bowl with this team. It is not quite up to the level of LeBron knocking off the 73-9 Warriors, but to overcome all the negative perceptions of this team being too inexperienced, too pass happy, too imbalanced, and too injured, this is a big deal. I agree with Mahomes that this win means even more than 2019 did for him.

There is a long offseason ahead to be talking about their chances at ending the repeat drought, and Philadelphia’s chances at getting right back to this game as the NFC is not the toughest path right now.

But I am going to let this one marinate, go up to bed in a good mood as it’s always an easier offseason when the Super Bowl goes the way you wanted it to, and this is the end of my 12th season covering the NFL. I would say I look forward to the break from football, but I am scheduled for multiple XFL and NBA pieces this week, so it looks like I will be keeping busy for the next six months until we do it all over again for the 2023 NFL season.

Unless the aliens get past our space lasers.

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NFL Super Bowl LVII Preview: Chiefs vs. Eagles

~ scottkacsmar ~ Leave a comment

I guess I got one more Super Bowl preview left in me. This is the only place where I post my final score prediction, but it has been a long two weeks to get to this point. I don’t know how many times I wrote about the oddities of 42-30 from last year’s meeting, or why I love Jalen Hurts as a touchdown scorer who might even do it on The Philly Special II, or why the referees (Carl Cheffers) are worth betting on for a flag fest.

Seriously, play those penalty props wherever you can find them (over in total yards, over in Kansas City penalty yards):

But unlike the last round where I ended up changing both my picks from Sunday to Saturday to the Chiefs and Eagles winning, I have not moved on this game.

The Eagles should win Super Bowl LVII, but the Chiefs certainly can pull it off.

This is already the third Super Bowl for Patrick Mahomes, the two-time MVP, and once again he goes up against the best pass defense he could from the NFC. Argue all you want about the 49ers being a better overall defense than the Eagles, but Mahomes already shredded that unit in Week 7.

I feel like I’m just going to keep recycling my old Mahomes Super Bowl content for these matchups.

Teams like the Eagles usually beat teams like the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, but what if Mahomes is just different? I wrote that from scratch, but after checking, yep, I pretty much wrote this already about Super Bowl LIV against the 49ers:

There are a lot of areas that favor the 49ers, and I think historically the 49ers are the type of team more likely to win this game than a team like the Chiefs. There are just more ways for the 49ers to win while practically every positive outcome for Kansas City involves Mahomes playing really well. 

Defense wins championships. Football teams are built in the trenches. Hyped QB matchups usually disappoint in the Super Bowl. That’s what I’d write about Chiefs vs. Eagles, and that’s also probably what I wrote about Chiefs vs. Buccaneers two years ago in Super Bowl LV. Oh look, I did.

Defense wins championships. Football games are decided in the trenches. Overhyped quarterback matchups tend to disappoint.

This is why I really do see Super Bowl LVII as a game that will either be like Chiefs-49ers where Mahomes and the offense figure it out in the 4Q to win or at least make it a 3-4 point game/tight finish, or it is going to be another blowout like Chiefs-Buccaneers where the pass rush is all over the QB on the injured ankle and the secondary is all over the injured receivers and shut downs Travis Kelce again.

Tale as old as time, right?

I’ve said this year that the Eagles are a team that’s dying to blow a 14 or 17-point lead in the playoffs after a dominant first half. Maybe the offense goes into turtle mode. Maybe the famed QB push sneak they’ve perfected gets stopped on a key fourth-and-1 to give the Chiefs new life. Maybe Jalen Hurts just has another off game against a young defense has has showed some improvement down the stretch.

The problem I have in this game is that it really takes Philadelphia uncharacteristically screwing up (like a turnover party) for the Chiefs to probably win. Otherwise, it is going to have to be a Mahomes masterclass, and I’m just not sure the offense is healthy or talented enough for him to do that in this matchup. The Eagles holding Kelce to 23 yards and holding everyone not named Tyreek Hill (186 yards) under 25 yards last year bugs me, because they’ve only gotten better in the pass rush and secondary with the additions of Haason Reddick and James Bradberry. Not to mention AJ. Brown on offense, who crushed the Chiefs in the last time the Chiefs were blown out (27-3 against the Titans last year).

In fact, there is so much history on the line in this game, and that’s why I want to get to my links because I wrote about it all (multiple times) the last two weeks. I’ll obviously recap what did and did not happen in the final Stat Oddity of the season tomorrow night, but let’s get to all the Super Bowl links I feel like sharing.

My Super Bowl Content:

Final Super Bowl LVII Prediction

I would love nothing more than a high-scoring, close Super Bowl that is an instant classic. Maybe it’s a 27-24 game (or 37-34 if you saw the leaked script, wink wink nudge nudge). Hopefully we get an 18th Super Bowl in the last 20 that is within one score in the fourth quarter.

But a lot of times these Super Bowls disappoint. Just look at two of the last four years when we had 13-3 and 31-9, two games where a team didn’t even score a touchdown. This 2022 NFL season has been filled with disappointing and low-scoring island games. The playoffs have been very disappointing as the only game with a fourth-quarter lead change was Chargers-Jaguars, and even that happened on the final snap so we couldn’t see how the Chargers would answer.

We really need something great to end this season on a high note, and I just don’t see it here. I think the Eagles revert to the team they were during the 8-0 start, meaning a dominant second quarter before they settle in the range of 21-to-29 points, and I’ll give the Chiefs just enough points to look respectable after last time’s embarrassment of scoring 9. But even in that game they dropped two touchdown opportunities.

I just keep coming back to the difference in the trenches, the difference in health at the skill players, the depth of the Eagles, and the way they aren’t afraid to go for fourth downs. I can’t even trust the Chiefs to convert a third-and-1 this year, and I sure don’t expect them to QB sneak it on fourth-and-1. Throw in the Carl Cheffers, Chiefs nemesis, angle at referee, and the Chiefs might be getting the short end of the stick there too.

I think it will look closer to Chiefs-49ers than Chiefs-Buccaneers, because Hurts doesn’t have that LOAT edge like Tom Brady. But if Chad Henne plays a significant role in this game, I’ll immediately change my mind on that. But I think it’s closer to Chiefs-49ers, and maybe this time Mahomes just doesn’t have Hill to convert a third-and-15 to. The roster weakness they covered up so well all year ultimately comes back to bite them in the Super Bowl against the No. 1 pass defense after too many injuries sustained in the last two playoff games. That’d be a damn shame, but it’s what I see happening in this one.

Forgive me if I rushed through this preview and it’s not as neatly organized and in depth like they used to be for the Super Bowl, but when you’re writing for four sites for 13 days about this one game, you just want to get to kickoff tomorrow at 6:30. I’m wiped out.

I cannot promise a good game tomorrow night, but I can promise a worthy recap to put it in its rightful place in history. But let’s hope I’m wrong I’m on this one.

Final: Eagles 27, Chiefs 20 (Super Bowl MVP: Haason Reddick)

NFL Super Bowl LVI Preview: Rams vs. Bengals

~ scottkacsmar ~ 1 Comment

Coming into Game No. 285 of the longest season in NFL history, I am tired. The conference championship outcomes and multiple Tom Brady retirement announcements feel like eons ago. The groundhog has seen its shadow, it’s almost Valentine’s Day, and I’ve spent the week losing at least nine NBA parlays on one leg (usually one stat). I’m streaming an episode of Doom Patrol on my phone and have Pulp Fiction on TV in the other room for the millionth time as I try to compile this, relax, and start the countdown to kickoff on Sunday evening.

Cause despite it being mid-February, there is still one more NFL game to be played. I have already written 10,000 words on this game at Bookmakers Review, which I will link and recap below. But first, allow me to vent about the potential this game could have on the future of the league.

Super Bowl LVI: The End of One Era Begins Anew?

It is unusual for me to not have such a vested interest in a Super Bowl. There’s no obvious villain for me to root against (Tom Brady, Ray Lewis, John Elway, Jerry Jones). While I would love to see Aaron Donald (Pitt) and Cooper Kupp (incredible season) get a Super Bowl ring, there’s no significant rooting interest like I’ve had with the Steelers, Peyton Manning, and Patrick Mahomes.

Eighteen of the last 20 Super Bowls gave me a chance to root for Steelers/Manning/Mahomes or root against Brady and the Patriots. Let that sink in. With 2002 Raiders-Buccaneers, I hated both teams. Ditto for the 2000 Giants-Ravens bore that put me to sleep. You’d probably have to go back to 1991 Bills-Redskins to find the last time I was this disinterested in who wins the Super Bowl, and I wasn’t even watching the NFL at the time. I was coming home every day and watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. Cowabunga.

Of course, I say all this with a February 2022 mindset. For all we know, this could be a major butterfly effect game in NFL history. One that either kicks off a new dynasty in Cincinnati with Joe Burrow taking his crack at being the new LOAT, or a Los Angeles win could be the impetus for contending teams to start ditching draft picks and long-term success plans for the thrill of going all in by acquiring big-name free agents to “buy” a championship.

Just like the 2007-08 Boston Celtics weren’t the first super team in NBA history, the 2021 Rams aren’t the first attempt at a super team in the NFL. Hell, this is basically 2020 Tampa Bay on repeat, even including the part where they get to play the Super Bowl in their home stadium. Unlike these Rams, the Buccaneers had plenty of high draft picks they drafted, but it is true that all three players to score a touchdown in Super Bowl LV were brought in last year to help the key acquisition of Tom Brady (Rob Gronkowski, Antonio Brown, and Leonard Fournette). These Rams do however have some drafted studs in Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp. But their attempt at going all in was based on bringing in Matthew Stafford, Von Miller, and Odell Beckham Jr. The Beckham trade even happened a day before wide receiver Robert Woods tore his ACL in practice. Donald and Kupp withstanding, the Rams largely outsourced their roster. The Bengals are mostly home grown on offense and spent peanuts to revamp their defense, which is playing over its head right now to get to this point.

If you’re a team-building purist, you’re definitely going to favor the Bengals’ traditional approach to the Rams taking a team that’s been winning for four years, but needed a few upgrades to get over the hump and win it all. Maybe setting a path to go seven years without drafting a player with a first-round pick is never going to be the standard plan of the future, but if the Rams pull this off, don’t be surprised if quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson start to leverage their talent and force their way onto the next super team. If the 49ers didn’t spend so many resources to get Trey Lance, I would say Rodgers to San Francisco in 2022 was a mortal lock.

Those 2008 Celtics had a profound impact on the NBA, showing LeBron James that he needed to leave Cleveland and form his own super team in Miami if he wanted to win a ring. He did, and then he left for Cleveland to do the same thing with new players. But after coming back from a 3-1 deficit against the Warriors, LeBron saw that two can play this game. Kevin Durant took his talents to Golden State, and this would have been an even stronger dynasty if not for injuries. Now everyone wants a “big three” in the NBA, and superstar team-ups are as common as ever.

But you can’t buy health. After a record number of All-Star players were injured in last season’s NBA playoffs, we got an unexpected Finals between the Suns and Bucks. In a way, this Rams-Bengals matchup feels a little similar to that in that it was so unexpected. With both teams finishing fourth in their conference, this is the first Super Bowl matchup ever without a top-three seed.

It may be the last we see too if the era of super teams is upon us. It also may be the end of an era where quarterbacks stay many years in one place, especially after seeing zero Super Bowl appearances in the last 11 seasons for Drew Brees in New Orleans (2010-20), Ben Roethlisberger in Pittsburgh (2011-21), and Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay (2011-21). When mainstream NFL media is still largely driven by telling quarterbacks their greatness is measured by their ring count, isn’t the next logical move for these quarterbacks to start leaving their teams for places that give them better opportunities to win championships?

While you’d love to pencil in Josh Allen as Buffalo’s quarterback for the next 10 years, what if things go sour with the loss of Brian Daboll? What if the next few Buffalo postseasons are also defined by games where the defense was destroyed or the Buffalo weather was so windy (a la the Patriots game on MNF) that Allen couldn’t get the job done? When Allen is still searching for that first Super Bowl appearance in his seventh or eighth season, wouldn’t a trade to a team with a few studs and maybe a roof on the stadium be an attractive option for him?

Even Mahomes is no lock to be a Chief for life. Within five years, Mahomes will almost surely experience the retirements of Andy Reid and Travis Kelce, and Tyreek Hill should lose a step in his early 30s. If he is still stuck on one ring by that time, is a Kansas City rebuild the best thing for him?

If Matthew Stafford, Mr. 8-68 Against Winning Teams Before 2021, can leave the Lions and instantly win a Super Bowl, why can’t any other top 12 quarterback do the same? It almost makes you want to root for the Bengals just to show that hitting draft picks and giving a coaching staff time to develop can still work. Now not many teams are going to get top five draft picks to land Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase, but the Bengals kept the same head coach — the one I said you couldn’t pick out of a lineup of Costco cashiers — and the same two coordinators from 2019-20 when the team was 6-25-1. They didn’t hire a new Bill Walsh or Bill Belichick by accident. They beat the Chiefs by going to a three-man rush. Not exactly revolutionizing the game.

On the other hand, these Bengals are already confident as hell. A win could only empower them to get even cockier, and the thought of Cincinnati replacing New England as the most annoying fanbase on the internet isn’t something I’m looking forward to even if they deserve a run for enduring decades of bad football.

So, like I said, I don’t have a strong preference for who should win this game, but the long-term effects it has on the league remain to be seen. They could be huge. Remember, a Joe Flacco Super Bowl run made it to where you have to pay at least $1 million per start for your quarterback even if he isn’t that great. It’s more like $2 million per start now.

Of course, after Super Bowl 47, Flacco won one more playoff game and Colin Kaepernick was blackballed out of the league before Sean McVay’s contact list became the most sought after item in the NFL coach hiring process.

This league moves in fast and sometimes mysterious ways, but either way, we are entering a new era in the NFL.

I have done five companion pieces on BMR to preview this game in great detail already. My general theme has been that the Rams are the more talented team, have been the better team all year, and they should win this game in their home stadium as the Bengals are statistically one of the weakest teams to ever reach a Super Bowl. While both teams boast a No. 1 pick at QB and a superstar wide receiver having a historic year, the defenses causing havoc with pressure and turnovers in the playoffs is the main reason these teams are here. Which defense makes the big splash plays to win this one? Is an upset possible? Hell yes, and it wouldn’t even be the biggest upset of the Rams in the Super Bowl this century.

Why Rams Can Beat Bengals – “If football games are won in the trenches and defense wins championships, then this game should largely be decided by how Cincinnati’s offensive line handles the pass rush of the Rams. The Bengals were 5-3 to start the season, 5-3 in the second half of the season, rested starters in Week 18, and have won three one-score games in the postseason that came down to the final snap. No team in NFL history has won four playoff games by fewer than eight points, and the Rams’ only loss since December was in overtime after blowing a 17-point lead.” I also look at Cooper Kupp’s historic season and how Stafford has had a better season than Burrow.

Why Bengals Can Beat Rams – “If Burrow really is the next chosen one, in the first game since Brady’s official retirement no less, then the Bengals are going to get a pick-six off Stafford, and McPherson is going to break a tie with a 48-yard field goal on the final play to beat the Rams just like Brady and the Patriots did 20 years ago to start a dynasty. After all, it’s the Year of the Tiger and everything is a sequel or reboot these days.” The headline after this game very well could be that “sacks hurt less than interceptions” if Burrow is taking sacks and Stafford is throwing crucial picks.

Rams Offense vs. Bengals Defense – “Again, all five teams to beat the Rams this year did three things: scored more than 24 points, held Stafford’s offense under 300 net passing yards, and forced multiple turnovers.” Both of these teams were 1-5 when allowing more than 24 points this season. The Bengals had the No. 1 scoring defense (17.6 PPG) in road games this year and intercepted 3.58% of passes on the road compared to 1.58% at home. Cooper Kupp is going to dominate, but this really is the wild card matchup in this game. If the Bengals can get picks, they should win, and you know Stafford is always going to leave some opportunities out there.

Bengals Offense vs. Rams Defense – “The wild card in this game is what Cincinnati’s opportunistic defense can do against Matthew Stafford and the talented Los Angeles offense. But the biggest mismatch on paper that could easily dictate the outcome is the inadequate Cincinnati offensive line against the Rams’ defensive front, led by future Hall of Famer Aaron Donald.” If the Bengals can hold up, they are arguably the most talented offense the Rams have faced this year. But Burrow has to get rid of the ball quickly or this could get ugly.

Super Bowl Game Pick and Prediction – Cincinnati is 6-1 ATS as a road underdog this season and 6-0 ATS in the last six games Burrow started. In this piece I ask the most pressing question: which defense creates the splash plays to win what should be a close, lower-scoring game? Sacks or interceptions? No quarterbacks had more of them this year than these two. I also look at officiating notes on Ron Torbert, how the Rams had a league-low 4 DPI penalties in 20 games, some comparisons on DVOA for Super Bowl teams, and how Cincinnati’s third-quarter dominance could set up a game script of the Bengals coming back to win another close one.

The Prediction

The moment of truth. The first article I wrote was why the Rams could win, then I did why the Bengals could win. If you compare those reasons, I think it’s obvious that I think the Rams should win. But then I started digging more, and after seeing how the Bengals play their best defense in the third quarter and on the road, and how I know Stafford is a guy who could throw a couple picks in any game, I started feeling the Bengals more.

The last four teams favored by more than 3.5 points lost the Super Bowl outright. I think Rams -2.5 is a lot more attractive line for them than Rams -4, which likely means winning by 7+ if you don’t want a push. But look at these teams’ games this season. They’re rarely blowing anyone out, at least not anyone good. I really believe it’s going to be a close game, like 16 of the last 18 Super Bowls have been in the fourth quarter.

Can Donald and Von turn this game into a rout by blowing up that offensive line? Of course. Football has shown us that many times over. But as I wrote in an old Super Bowl preview about Mahomes and the Chiefs being different, I mentioned Joe Burrow (+Chase) and LSU were different too. I remember Burrow starting shaky in the national championship game against Clemson’s top-ranked defense. Then he destroyed them. I don’t think this is a game where he’s throwing for 450+, but I don’t think he has to either. He just has to avoid the game-changing turnovers and hope (or will if he is the new fvcking Brady) his defense forces Stafford into those.

I think the Bengals are going to win the turnover battle, Kupp is going to play the Ricky Proehl part and score a game-tying touchdown late, and Burrow is going to set Evan McPherson up for a 48-yard game-winning field goal that somehow takes seven seconds off the clock.

It’s Super Bowl 36 (STL-NE) all over again as Burrow joins Brady as the only quarterbacks in NFL history to win four straight playoff games (their first four too) by fewer than eight points.

Okay, I am starting to find my rooting interest after all…

Final: Bengals, 23 Rams 20 (MVP: Joe Burrow even though Mike Hilton will have a pick-six)