The 2018 NFL season was supposed to be the year the Los Angeles Rams won it all.
All the pieces were in place – reigning coach of the year Sean McVay, fresh off taking the league by storm as a rookie bench boss one year earlier; offensive and defensive pillars like Todd Gurley and Brandon Cooks, Aaron Donald and Marcus Peters and John Johnson were in their prime; and young quarterback Jared Goff had just been named to his second straight Pro Bowl and was about to come into some big money as the sure future of this club.
Yes, this was the year.
And then Super Bowl LIII started. It … did not go well.
Three years later, they’re back in the Super Bowl – and hosting the big game to boot. And we’re back to believing that this year is the year.
Last spring, the club sent Goff to Detroit with a pair of first-round picks for a stronger arm in Matthew Stafford. Cooper Kupp won the lottery with that trade, while the Rams won the Odell Beckham Jr. sweepstakes mid-season to make the receiving group even scarier. The deep secondary is now led by Jalen Ramsey, Aaron Donald’s got a new BFF in Von Miller, and while McVay’s coaching staff has been picked apart and rebuilt a few times over as teams search for the next young offensive mind, the brains behind this playbook remain some of the game’s brightest.
Yes, this is the year.
… Right?
THE STORY OF THE SEASON: HOW THE RAMS REACHED SUPER BOWL LVI
Cincinnati’s Cinderella story was made for Hollywood, but L.A.’s was made in Hollywood – complete with the bright lights, big stars, and definitely some drama in there, too.
Ever since Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers hoisted the Lombardi Trophy on home soil last February, the heat has been on L.A. to do the same at SoFi. It’s been Super Bowl or bust ever since, and every move made – and draft pick dealt – has been done with that sparkly trophy in mind.
Landing Matthew Stafford in a blockbuster trade with Detroit was the first and biggest step, and the former Lion wasted no time answering questions about whether or not he could thrive in the spotlight. He completed 20 of 26 passes for 321 yards and three touchdowns without an interception in Week 1 and his top targets that game — Kupp, Van Jefferson, Tyler Higbee, Robert Woods — all saw significant action. MVP buzz was already flying, and McVay was downright giddy. A statement win over Brady and the Buccaneers in Week 3 told us these Rams were for real, and those MVP conversations quickly started to extend to Kupp, who’d gone from secret weapon to absolute star thanks to a strong connection with Stafford.
Of course, the season was not without its hiccups. The year started on a low note with the loss of starting running back Cam Akers, who suffered an Achilles injury and left Rams management scrambling to trade for Sony Michel from New England.
The month of November ended the team’s honeymoon phase, with the Rams going 0-3 and losing receiver Woods for the remainder of the season. But it also brought some highs, in the form of trading for Miller and landing Beckham Jr., whose dramatic exit from Cleveland couldn’t have come at a more perfect time.
As star-studded a roster as L.A. boasted, though, there had been a sense all year this was a team that lacked resilience and couldn’t win those grind-it-out games every season brings from time to time. That much was clear when it came to meetings with their California divisional rivals in San Francisco, to whom they lost twice this year … again.
Could they win when it really counted? That was the big question that kept emerging. And in the Divisional round against Tampa Bay and the Conference Championship versus those 49er foes, we finally got our answer. Stafford’s spotlight keeps on shining.
THREE KEYS TO VICTORY
1. Aaron Donald
There’s no way you’ve survived a full NFL season and playoff slate without hearing about the porous state of the Bengals’ offensive line, but we’ll add to the chorus here. Joe Burrow was the most-sacked quarterback in the regular season (51) and has been brought down 12 times in these playoffs alone. That he still managed to propel the Bengals to the Super Bowl is a testament to his talent and the weapons around him. While Donald is undoubtedly the biggest threat to break through the line every snap, it’s not just him. Successfully stop Donald, and you’ve left Miller free to wreak havoc. Or Leonard Floyd. We saw, just last year, what happens when a star quarterback is left to run for his life on football’s biggest stage and it wasn’t pretty.
2. Sean McVay 2.0
Three years ago, when McVay was the shiny new coaching crush of the football world, he brought bright ideas and a creative offensive approach to L.A. that took them to the Super Bowl. Now, he’s still got all that — and he’s got the experience of losing, too. While part of the fun of Cincinnati’s run is their inexperience, the value of knowing what to expect from the game’s biggest stage should not be underestimated. It’s not just about the game, it’s about everything leading up to it – the emotions, the heightened pressure. Having an experienced coach to guide a team through that could be the difference between hoisting the trophy and leaving with heartbreak.
3. The Stafford-Kupp connection, and the OBJ conundrum
There’s no doubting the Bengals’ defence has been underestimated all season, and it has certainly come to play down the stretch and into the playoffs. But against the Rams’ multi-faceted offence, we can expect some troubles. Kupp has been an absolute revelation in L.A., collecting triple-crown honours as the league leader in catches, yards, and TDs through the air. Commit to double-coverage on him, and you’ve still got star receiver Beckham to worry about. Or Higbee. Or the underrated weapon that is Jefferson. This matchup has elite weapons, and plenty of them, on both sides of the ball. The Rams’ pass defence has struggled all season, ranking 22nd, and with the dynamic Ja’Marr Chase coming to town it feels like the key to stopping the Bengals will be to keep up with them — or, better yet, set the pace.
