Football Morning In America, Super Bowl 56, Rams Beat Bengals

HAWTHORNE, Calif. — No, this is not the place where Super Bowl LVI was won by the Rams, 23-20, in another coin-flip of a football game, the only kind the NFL plays these days. That dateline would be INGLEWOOD, Calif. This is the place where, in a private airport hangar, the Rams celebrated the first football championship by a team in the City of Angels since 1984.

“Was it all worth it?” I asked owner Stan Kroenke just after midnight this morning in L.A., just after 3 on the East Coast.

I meant: Was the gigantic risk of jilting St. Louis and then being handed the second-biggest market in the United States by the NFL and being told, Don’t screw this up, and then spending the insane sum of $5 billion for a football stadium, and then knowing that none of it would work if the team was middle of the road, and then hiring a 30-year-old coach to lead the franchise out of the doldrums … I meant, was this evening worth all of the risk taken to make it happen?

“Wait,” said Rams VP Tony Pastoors, overhearing my question. “Before he answers that question, let me go get the Lombardi Trophy for him to hold. Then you can ask him if it was worth it.”

Kroenke, the owner hated in Missouri but now loved in L.A., smiled wryly. “The great thing,” he said, “is what this does for Los Angeles. It’s just great for this city.”

Football in L.A. is back, in a very big way. Prince Harry was in the Rams’ locker room post-game, and now, Cardi B and Snoop Dogg were on the way to the party. As for the mega-decisions that awaited the fathers of the franchise—for instance, will Aaron Donald retire?—those could wait. This night was for celebrating the improbable.

Oh, and Matthew Stafford won the Super Bowl in year 13, after never winning a playoff game in his first 12 NFL seasons. Von Miller re-discovered the fountain of youth with another two-sack playoff game. Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp did what all-time players should do—play great when greatness is required.

This game was such a bizarre but perfect illustration of the 2021 season. Dominate? No. This was a 51-49 affair, maybe closer. Whoever had the ball last and could make one play would win. Donald’s defensive stonewalling of Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow with the game on the line in the final minute clinched it. If that series was his last, he ended in grand style.

A few observations before we get to the game-winner throw from Stafford, a play called 15 Wanda Now X Fade:

• What an egalitarian postseason. We will never see its like again. Impossible. In the divisional, conference championship and Super Bowl weekends, the margins in the last seven games of this NFL season were, in order: 3, 3, 3, 6, 3, 3 and 3 points. Who invented this football? Even Steven?

• I can’t get over the Bucs, the Niners and the Bengals (especially after the Odell Beckham Jr. ACL injury) knowing the Rams were laser-focused on getting the ball to Cooper Kupp in three excruciatingly tight games, and this is what this great receiver did over those three games: 28 catches, 417 yards, five TDs. Reminder: Cooper Kupp was drafted 60 picks after John…