Super Bowl ’22

The Rams’ 23-20 win over the Bengals was basically a defensive showcase, with most plays going nowhere. There were, however, about ten plays that stood out and provided all the conversational fodder that was needed, and the game, as had the preceding six playoff contests, came down to the final two-minute drill.

The biggest single play, for me, was the stop by Aaron Donald when the Bengals had third-and-one on the 50-yard line with 30 seconds to play. He reached around a blocker and pulled the running back backward. The officials, in my view, also gave the Bengals a bad spot, but the runner would still have been short. If the Bengals had made the first down, they would have had three cracks at throwing at least a ten-yard pass to get in field goal range. Fourth-and-one was simply too desperate a situation and Donald’s coup de grace was no surprise.

The unwarranted defensive holding call on Logan Wilson, who had just spectacularly knocked down a pass to Cooper Kupp at the 2-yard line on third-and-goal was the next biggest play. To say that it compensated for the officials missing offensive interference on the Bengals’ second touchdown is fair, but in the moment it seemed more decisive. Had the Bengals not committed a helmet-to-helmet hit on the next play in the end zone, the Rams would have had 15 difficult yards instead of 1 to get their winning score. The simultaneous holding by the Rams affected the play in a way the personal foul did not, so they weren’t quite equal.

It’s too bad that an almost penalty-free game ended up with three consecutive penalties costing the Bengals in the final minute, as it inevitably leaves a sour taste in the mouths of Cincinnati fans and somewhat dilutes the greatness of Matthew Stafford’s final drive. But in a way it makes American football comparable to real football, what we call soccer, where fans almost expect a game to be decided by a referee’s call, often bad. That’s part of the game.

The other big plays were the Bengals’ failure to make a 4th-and-1 at midfield, leading to a Rams field goal; while the Rams, specifically Kupp, made their 4th-and-1 to keep the winning drive alive. Conversely, the Bengals one trick play, a halfback pass by Joe Mixon, succeeded, while the Rams’ version of the Philly Special, with Kupp passing to Stafford, failed laughably.

There was only one memorable offensive play all day: Jamari Chase’s one-handed grab of a 45-yard pass from Joe Burrow with Galen Ramsey draped over him. (Again, the officials inexplicably gave the Bengals a bad spot, about four yards further from the goal line, which may have contributed to their inability to convert a touchdown.) Rather, it was the defensive line play that stood out, for both teams. For me, the game ball should go to the Rams’ defensive line, with Aaron Donald in the lead.