It wasn’t the perfection of last weekend’s games, but that’s not to say the AFC and NFC Championships were not fantastic. Both games came down to the wire and had plenty of drama to make a worthy encore to the Divisional Round. Let’s hope this two week run of football carries into the Pro Bo…I mean Super Bowl Sunday.
Last week we were talking about the AFC being Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen’s to battle over for years to come. Well ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Mr. Joe Burrow who would like to have something to say about that. Him and the Cincinnati Bengals are saying fuck your “trust the process” and are just going to try and take this league over right now.
The NFC Championship was a battle between the two best teams in the best division in the NFL. Two teams that had us unsure how good they really were at moments this season, but ended up coming on strong to end the year. The Rams and 49ers could play ten times and probably break even. At the end of the day, the Rams may have lost the first two battles, but won the war. Matthew Stafford is finally getting his moment to shine in front of the rest of the world after being hidden away in Detroit for years.
It’s only right that the NFL season that taught us to always expect the unexpected will end with one of the most unexpected Super Bowl matches of this century, but first let’s look back at Sunday’s Championship games.
Bengals Second Half Comeback Propels Them to First Super Bowl in 34 Years
The Kansas City Chiefs were leading the Cincinnati Bengals 21-10 with nine seconds left in the first half. Patrick Mahomes had once again led the Chiefs down the field with a bit of ease and had them within one yard of scoring their fourth touchdown of the half. The Bengals had just scored a touchdown off a 41-yard Joe Burrow pass to Samaje Perine. Any momentum the Bengals had final gained was about to be wiped away. Then the unexpected happened. On first down, Patrick Mahomes threw an incomplete pass. There were still five seconds left and instead of taking the three points, the Chiefs offense remained on the field. Mahomes once against stepped back to pass and threw a short pass to Tyreek Hill that quickly found him swallowed up by several Bengals defenders before he could reach the end zone and after the clock had struck zero. The Bengals could enter halftime with some momentum and hope.
The second half turned into a spotlight on the Cincinnati defense. They held the dynamic Chiefs offense to only three points and forced a late third quarter interception of Mahomes that would eventually lead to a Ja’Marr Chase touchdown and successful two point conversion to tie the game up at 21.
The Bengals would eventually take a 24-21 point lead after a 52 yard Evan Mcpherson field goal but with Andy Reid and Mahomes at the helm a Cincinnati win never felt inevitable.
The Chiefs offense put together a time draining drive that included a combination of Mahomes’ throws and Jerick McKinnon runs to bring them to the Cincinnati four yard line. With 1:26 left in the game, Cincinnati out of timeouts, and the Chiefs 2nd & Goal they elected to run play action pass that turned into a Bengals sack and pushed them back five yards. The decision to not run on 2nd down, potentially get a touchdown or at the very least limit the negative yard potential while draining the clock already seemed questionable before it got worse. On 3rd & Goal, Mahomes was once against sacked. This time after attempt to scramble away, he was tackled for a 15 yard loss with only three seconds left. Fortunately for them, Harrison Butker kicked a 44 yard field goal to avoid a cataclysmic fourth quarter end.
The Chiefs won the coin toss in overtime and it felt like this game would be a repeat of the Chiefs/Bills game of last week. The Chiefs offense would cruise down the field and end the game on the first overtime drive with a touchdown.
That wasn’t how this game would end though. The Bengals defense continued their dominant second half in to overtime and forced incomplete passes on the Chiefs first two plays. Then on 3rd & 10, Mahomes took a deep shot to Tyreek Hill in double coverage and was intercepted by Von Bell.
When watching in real time it didn’t feel like it could be possible that the Cincinnati Bengals were going to knock off the Kansas City Chiefs and play for a Super Bowl. Joe Burrow and Joe Mixon marched the Bengals offense right through the Chiefs defense and set up McPherson for a 31 yard field goal. After all of the other big kicks McPherson has hit this season, this one was automatic. He kicked it straight through the uprights and sent Cincy to its first Super Bowl since 1988.
Joe Burrow becomes the first quarterback selected first overall in the NFL Draft to get to a Super Bowl in his first two seasons. The “Joe Cool” comparisons continue to be eye opening. At 25 years old, Burrow had the composure of a veteran who has led game winning drives in huge games for years. He continues to face pressure each and every game, takes some licks, but still comes back to pull the opponents’ heart out of their chest like a Lloyd Christmas daydream in Dumb & Dumber.
Now Cincinnati, a team who has been the underdog the last two weeks will head to a Super Bowl played in the home stadium of their opponent. You can bet against this team if you dare, but don’t be surprised to see the victory cigar smoke flowing for the Bengals one more time.
Rams Get Last Laugh in NFC Championship Game
The Los Angeles Rams were 0-2 this season against the San Francisco 49ers. Sean McVay’s record against Kyle Shanahan? 0-6. All of those previous games were thrown out of the window in this one.
Early on this game felt like it was going to be an ugly offensive game with two teams giving up great opportunities to score. Halfway through the first quarter, Matthew Stafford had lead a 64 yard drive all the way to the San Francisco three yard line only to throw a third down interception.
Eventually both teams would get some offense from their best playmakers. Cooper Kupp opened the scoring in the second quarter with a 16 yard touchdown catch. Deebo Samuel scored his own touchdown shortly after as he a broke a screen pass for a 44 year touchdown to tie the game.
The first half would end with one more drive from each team that ended in field goal attempts. The Rams would miss theirs, but Robbie Gould would keep his 100% playoff field goal percentage intact to end the half and give the Niners a 10-7 lead.
The second half consisted of some more mimicking from the two teams. The 49ers would score a George Kittle touchdown to take a 17-7 lead in the third quarter, which would be the largest lead of the entire game.
That two possession lead didn’t last long though as Stafford orchestrated a quick seven play, 75 yard drive that ended with another Kupp touchdown reception.
The Rams defense kept the game in striking distance as the next two San Francisco drives ended with punts. The Rams offense would take both opportunities and finish each drive with a field goal to tie and then take the lead with just 1:46 left in the game. The drive to take the lead included a gift wrapped would be interception that San Francisco’s Jaquiski Tartt dropped. The following play was a 30 yard Odell Beckham Jr catch that included an additional 15 yards for unnecessary roughness after a Niners defender delivered an illegal hit. A crushing sequence for the 49ers.
Jimmy Garoppolo played a fairly efficient game until the fourth quarter, but he saved his inevitable really bad throw for the 49ers final drive. On 3rd & 13 from their own 25 yard line, Garoppolo felt immediate pressure up the middle from Aaron Donald, attempted to scramble away and threw an off balance shovel pass to JaMycal Hasty that went off his finger tips and landed into a Rams defender’s hands to seal the game.
The Rams would kneel out the remaining seconds of the game and just like that, all of the previous records had little meaning. The Rams had defeated the 49ers this season, Sean McVay had his win against Shanahan, and Matthew Stafford went from not winning a playoff game to clinching a berth in the Super Bowl in just three weeks. A Los Angeles team that survived the gauntlet of the NFC West, eliminated two of their divisional foes in the post season, and held off a historic comeback by the defending champions with the greatest quarterback of all time breathing down their neck, is now going to have a Super Bowl in their own stadium.
A football team in Los Angeles full of stars will be welcoming a young team out of the Midwest that no one expected would be playing right now. If this were a Hollywood movie script, the kids out of Cincinnati would be pulling the upset. These Los Angeles Rams will have no intention of letting that happen.
Looking Ahead to Super Bowl LVI
The Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams. Not what anyone could’ve expected at the start of the season. A year ago both of these teams’ seasons were done. The Los Angeles Rams would’ve already been eliminated by the Green Bay Packers in the Divisional Round. The Bengals offseason started much earlier as they had finished last in the AFC North. Jared Goff was quarterback of Los Angeles. Brandon Allen had finished as quarterback of the Bengals offense after rookie Joe Burrow’s season ended far too early due to injury.
The Cincinnati Bengals were a +15000 to win a Super Bowl this season. When the Minnesota Vikings lost to them in Week 1 of the season, many people thought it was a terrible loss. The Joe Burrow factor is hard to make sense of. He was selected first overall for a reason obviously, but the a player at the most important position in the sport shouldn’t be able to get his team to a Super Bowl in only his second year. Heading into this season, the Bengals were the fifth youngest team by average age (25.69). The hopes for this team heading into the season were to just improve from an abysmal 2020-21 season. Once they started winning games this year most of us figured their goal should be to make the playoffs to continue a trajectory towards a Super Bowl in the years to follow. Now it’s Super Bowl or bust.
The playoff path hasn’t been easy for Cincinnati. All three of their playoff wins have essentially ended on the last play of the game (the Wild Card win against Las Vegas ended with a Derek Carr interception and Cincinnati taking a knee to end the game). At moments they have looked like a team that is due for an inevitable end but they always seem to find a way. They now feel like a team of destiny.
The Rams obviously had high expectations entering this year as they traded Jared Goff and went all in on Matthew Stafford. The Rams opened the year looking as good as advertised, but eventually there were moments this season where Los Angeles looked like imposters. There was that three game midseason stretch where they lost to Tennessee, San Francisco, and Green Bay. Sure, all were playoff teams but Los Angeles was never really in any of those games. Even during their five game winning streak towards the end of the season, several of those wins felt less impressive and more like the Rams were surviving games despite quality of play.
The Rams are fittingly Hollywood’s team. They’ve acquired several stars with Stafford and the additions of Odell Beckham Jr. and Von Miller during the season. It took awhile for these moves to pay off, but everyone has finally come into their own down the stretch and into the Rams’ playoff run. I think the Rams front office would probably lie that they expected it might always take this long for the stars to align but the reality is their gambles on going all in on a Super Bowl are only one win away from paying off now.
This NFL season has been a spectacular display of the league’s parity throughout the entire season. Good teams losing to bottom feeders. Teams who led their division for weeks, only to miss the playoffs. A team who lost their best player and still proceeded to clinch a number one seed. The playoffs have only amplified what we saw during the regular season. What we have seen in the last two weeks is quite possibly the closest the NFL will ever come to March Madness.
For all of our sake, let’s hope the madness continues on February 13th at Super Bowl LVI.