Ayyyeee… What’s Goodie Everyone. So I got some tea and it involves the Superbowl.
The Los Angeles Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals, 23-20, in the Super Bowl on Sunday, capturing an N.F.L. championship by scoring a touchdown with less than two minutes remaining in the fourth quarter and then stopping quarterback Joe Burrow from his own last ditch comeback in the game’s final moments.
Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford finished off the decisive 15-play, 72-yard drive with a 1-yard touchdown pass to Cooper Kupp, who leapt into the air with a defender nearby to grab his second touchdown of the game. 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.
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.
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.
The following possession, Stafford threw a pass that was intended for receiver Ben Skowronek, but the ball corralled off his hands and into the grasp of the Bengals defensive back Chidobe Awuzie.
Odell Beckham Jr. 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 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 got the win.
Dream's Chronicles Reloaded ™ 