INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Stay clean. Avoid the critical mistakes.
That’s a mantra both the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams should have adopted heading into Sunday’s Super Bowl.
Limit the turnovers and costly penalties. Don’t waste timeouts, particularly in the second half. Get physical rather than fancy. Being efficient can trump being spectacular.
All they need to do is look back to the last time the Los Angeles area hosted a Super Bowl nearly three decades ago. That game at the Rose Bowl became an almost laughable rout as the Buffalo Bills kept surrendering the ball to the Dallas Cowboys.
“Just going to go out there and impose our will and play physical and let the chips fall where they may,” Bengals cornerback Eli Apple said.
Echoed All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey of the Rams: “Do our thing and do it the best we can. That’s winning football.”
Sure, the Super Bowl is America’s biggest sporting event; some would argue it is America’s biggest event of any kind. It’s splashy, it’s overhyped, with a weeklong publicity machine by the league, the teams, the host city, the network televising it.
In the end, it’s a football game. And most football games are won by the team that minimizes miscues.
AP photo by Mark J. Terrill / Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay, left, talks to quarterback Matthew Stafford during a Super Bowl practice Thursday in Pasadena, Calif.The Rams are 4-point favorites, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, but they might not even be in this Super Bowl in their new $5 billion SoFi Stadium had San Francisco 49ers safety Jaquiski Tartt not dropped an easy would-be interception late in the NFC title game. Bringing in veteran Matthew Stafford at a hefty price in draft picks – along with unloading a younger quarterback, Jared Goff, who was part of the team that lost in the Super Bowl three years ago, when he struggled mightily – has paid off richly for the Rams.
Stafford’s 49,995 passing yards and 323 touchdown passes are the most for a quarterback making his first Super Bowl appearance. The 37-year-old former Georgia Bulldogs star needs 209 passing yards to become the sixth player to reach 6,000 in a single season.
He also puts the ball up for grabs at times, though. That needs to be limited Sunday.
“We went out and got him because we thought it was a chance to be able to get a great player of his magnitude,” Rams coach Sean McVay said of Stafford, who spent a dozen seasons playing well for the Detroit Lions without a single postseason victory. “What he’s done, he’s elevated everybody around him. He’s made me a better coach. He’s made his teammates better.”
So has the guy on the other side, Joe Burrow. Like Stafford, Burrow was the top overall draft pick. His rookie season was curtailed after 10 games by a knee injury, but his second year has been so terrific he won NFL comeback player of the year at age 25. His most recent production has been magnificent. And nearly spotless.
Burrow has gone from No. 1 overall pick to starting quarterback in the Super Bowl faster than anyone else. He has 15 touchdown passes and just two interceptions in his past seven games while averaging 331.1 passing yards per game.
Rarely has Burrow gambled in the past two months, and look how that has paid off.
AP photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez / Cincinnati Bengals coaches and players huddle during practice Friday in Los Angeles ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl.Of course, this matchup is about a lot more than when and where the quarterbacks throw the ball. It’s about Cincinnati’s offensive line – which allowed Burrow to be the most-sacked passer in the league during the regular season, 51 times, with nine more in a playoff victory against the Tennessee Titans – bowing up against a generational talent such as Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald and other top pass rushers Leonard Floyd and Von Miller.
“This is a special group of talented guys on this defense,” said Miller, who was MVP of the Denver Broncos’ Super Bowl 50 victory. “I’m talking about one of the best groups I’ve ever been fortunate enough to be a part of. We work together as a team, and it just gets better each week.”
It’s about Ramsey being a shutdown cover guy against offensive rookie of the year Ja’Marr Chase, and the rest of the Los Angeles secondary handling Chase’s compatriots, Tyler Boyd and Tee Higgins. And about the same on the other side, with Apple and his fellow defensive backs trying to slow down offensive player of the year Cooper Kupp, Odell Beckham Jr. and Van Jefferson.
It’s about the kicking games, which have been very solid in the postseason, continuing to perform on the sport’s biggest stage.
Same for the coaches: McVay, who is accustomed to the glaring spotlight after taking the Rams to the playoffs in four of his five seasons, and Bengals counterpart Zac Taylor, his former assistant, in his first postseason as a head man. McVay did not perform well, nor did his team, in that Super Bowl three years ago, looking uncomfortable against the dynastic New England Patriots in quarterback Tom Brady’s final title run with the team.
As difficult as it may be – and it is very difficult – it’s about treating the Super Bowl in the clichéd phrasing players use: just another game.
There’s plenty of truth to that.
“You’ve got a job to go out there and execute and try to lead your team,” Stafford said. “The game begins, and it’s football. That’s what we’re here for.”