The Los Angeles Rams conquered this Sunday the LVI Super Bowl, the grand finale of the NFL American, after beating the Cincinnati Bengals by a tight 23-20, in a match with alternatives that was decided in their favor in the final stages.
The Rams managed to lift their second Vince Lombardi trophy after 2000when they were still playing in St Louis then, and again left the Bengals, the great revelation of the campaign, without glory for the third time after their losses in 1982 and 1989 against the San Francisco 49ers.
It was not a spectacular Super Bowl at the level of plays, but it did keep the emotion until the end to crown his team, who brought out their best defensive strength and the Matthew Stafford-Cooper Kupp connection at the right time, and Sean McVay as the youngest manager (36 years old) to win the championship ring. What’s morethe Rams emulated what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers did last year and became champions in their fiefSoFi Stadium, to be the second in NFL history to do so.
Cincinnati was not daunted by his great opportunity and had the Super Bowl in his hand after going from less to more and signing a great start after the break, which he did not know how to continue due to the defense of his rival. Joe Burrow still had one last chance to try to force overtimebut, with the oppression of time, his eighth ‘sack’ of the night was definitive.
The Rams started the American football grand final better and were the first to hit with Odell Beckahm Jr’s ‘touchdown’ (7-0). This was the one that did the most damage to the Bengals defense, which controlled the great danger that Kupp posed quite well.
However, the Los Angeles defense also did not allow Burrow to find Jamarr Chase easily, but in one of the few times he did, the receiver signed one of the best plays of the afternoon despite the marking of Jalen Ramsey. It did not help, however, the Bengals to get more than a ‘field goal’ (7-3).
Stafford found Kupp early in the second quarter for the second ‘TD’ of the Super Bowl, who did not get the extra point for a reception failure (13-3). From there, Zac Taylor’s team grew in defense and Burrow managed to design a good ‘drive’ that ended in the surprising ‘touchdown’ with the deception play where Joe Mixon was the one who threw the pass to Tee Higgins (13-10).
Before the break, Stafford had his first interception, but the champion of the American Conference could not take advantage of it against a rival that suffered the bad news of Beckham’s injurywhich significantly reduced their offense for the rest of the match.
After passing through changing rooms and the halftime ‘show’, the script changed and the balance tipped towards the side of the Bengals. It took them 12 seconds to score a touchdown through Higgins again, although there could have been a lack of this on Ramsey when he grabbed his helmet to avoid him.
Soon after, the Rams had another interception and the game seemed to turn Cincinnati in color when the defense led by Aaron Donald emerged to minimize the damage and, not only reducing the next attack to just a ‘field goal’ (13-20), but also not receiving any more points in the rest of the match.
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In any case, the champion of the American Conference was not effective either and his options were sustained by his defensive work. He noted Beckham’s drop, he didn’t find Kupp and on the run he was barely able to do any damage to his opponent. Still, with Stafford and Burrow suffering from physical ankle and knee problems respectively, the Bengals weren’t able to finish, which the veteran Tampa quarterback did and Kupp showed up.
Between the two they signed a good ‘drive’ to bring the oval to the gates of the ‘end zone’. Taylor’s team did everything possible to hold on, but could not prevent the second ‘touchdown’ (23-20) of the wide receiver, finally chosen the ‘MVP’ of the Super Bowl. There was 1:25 left, the time Burrow needed to try to get his team as close to the ‘field goal’ as possible to take the game to extra time. The young ‘quarterback’ was not entirely fine and with 4th and 1 he could not avoid the final harassment of Donald and Vince Lombardi stayed at SoFi Stadium.