Coming into this season, the Los Angeles Rams had a Super Bowl or bust mentality after acquiring quarterback Matthew Stafford to lead a roster full of stars and blue-chip players.
Throughout the course of the season, the confidence in this Rams team wavered, perhaps no time more than their two games against the San Francisco 49ers.
The 49ers blew out the Rams at Levi Stadium in the first matchup and then came to SoFi Stadium and erased a 17-0 deficit to win in Week 18. The Rams could have knocked their rivals out of the postseason that day and failed to do so, so it only made sense that they got another opportunity.
It only made sense that the Rams had to go through the 49ers, who have beaten them six straight times, to reach the Super Bowl and achieve the goal they’ve had all season long.
And while it wasn’t easy with it looking like the 49ers were gonna come out on top for most of the day, the Rams eventually prevailed with a 20-17 victory to reach Super Bowl LVI.
As I get into my usual analysis here, I’m gonna do things a little bit differently this week. Instead of splitting things up into categories, I’m just going to kind of go chronologically since there were so many things worth mentioning in this game.
So let’s start for the beginning.
A lot was made of the quarterback matchup in this game as many questioned whether either Stafford or Jimmy Garoppolo were capable of leading their teams to a Super Bowl.
And at the beginning, it looked like both quarterbacks were a bit nervous. Stafford missed Odell Beckham Jr. on third down to begin the day with a three-and-out, and then the 49ers did the same after Garoppolo missed an open George Kittle.
The Rams then put a solid drive together, going 64 yards on 10 plays to set up a third-and-goal from the red zone. The one thing Stafford can’t do in that situation is turn the ball over, and that’s exactly what he did, trying to force one into Cooper Kupp that wound up being tipped and intercepted.
Stafford’s turnovers were a big issue this season, which is why many were skeptical about him leading this team to the promised land. He had protected the ball well so far this postseason, but when that interception happened, Rams fans would be lying if we said we didn’t get a bit nervous since his turnovers typically come in bunches.
To Stafford’s credit though, that was his only turnover of the day and he was able to put it behind him immediately as the next time the Rams got the ball, they drove 97 yards on 18 plays for the first touchdown of the game.
That drive had everything, including some big catches by Kendall Blanton, who had an exceptional day replacing Tyler Higbee after he went down early with an injury. Stafford also had a big third-down run, and then Kupp came up with a pair of big catches, including the touchdown.
From there though, the offense got a bit sloppy. Kupp dropped what looked like could’ve been a touchdown, Ben Skowronek dropped what for sure was a touchdown and Sean McVay made some ill-advised challenges to rid the Rams of their timeouts early in the second half.
And let me just get this out of the way now…This may have been the worst game McVay has coached with the Rams.
I already mentioned the challenges, but some of his play calls were also puzzling. One sequence that stands out is when they threw it on third-and-short with the 49ers pressuring Stafford to force an incomplete pass. They then went with a quarterback sneak on fourth down and Stafford, who has struggled with those all year, was unable to get it.
I will cut McVay some slack though considering that 49ers defensive front is no joke and not easy to scheme against, plus McVay and Shanahan know each other so well that it cleared looked like both were overthinking things trying to outsmart each other.
Back to the game though, and let me get to the Rams defense. They got off to a great start, making it a point to load the box and stop the 49ers’ run game, which has been a huge issue in this matchup in the past.
But after the Rams’ first touchdown, the 49ers immediately responded with one of their own on a Deebo Samuel screen pass with L.A. struggling to tackle the physical receiver. Troy Reeder, in particular, really had a rough day tackling Samuel and it was clear that Shanahan was looking for that matchup all day.
Brandon Aiyuk also had a big catch on Darious Williams, which is another matchup the 49ers looked to exploit often.
San Francisco would tack on a field goal before the end of the half and would go into the locker room leading 10-7.
The second half is when the 49ers have really dominated the Rams in the rivalry in recent years, and it looked like that was gonna be the case again in this one. They finally put one of their patented long, physical drives together against the Rams defense, going 58 yards on 10 plays towards the end of the third quarter with Kittle scoring to make it 17-7.
At that point, it became gut-check time. The Rams were down 10 points in the fourth quarter to a team that had their number. They were 15 minutes away from their season coming to a disappointing end.
While Aaron Donald gave a passionate speech to the defense on the sidelines, it was the offense that had to come up with a big drive to respond. And as was the case all season long, that’s exactly what Stafford, Kupp, Beckham, etc. did.
The Rams went 75 yards on seven plays, capping the drive off with Kupp’s second touchdown to cut the deficit to 17-14.
Now, it was again the defense’s time to take over and that’s exactly what they did. The 49ers knew they couldn’t really run the ball at that point and had to put the ball in Garoppolo’s hands. That allowed the Rams’ pass rush, which stayed quiet for most of the day, to finally get going.
The 49ers had just one first down on their final three drives as Donald, Von Miller, Greg Gaines, A’Shawn Robinson and all of those guys continued to put pressure on Garoppolo.
With the defense getting the ball back to the offense, Stafford still had more work to do with the Rams trailing 17-14.
While L.A. was not able to find the end zone again, Stafford continued doing what he does best and that’s find an open Kupp and Beckham for chunk gains.
Matt Gay also had his job to do, and he did it by making 40 and 30-yard field goals to give the Rams the lead, 20-17, with less than two minutes left.
The 49ers still had one more chance though, so the Rams defense had to get one final stop to close out the game. Donald had a pretty quiet game for his standards, but he came up with the play when they needed it most by getting pressure on Garoppolo to force a wild under-hand throw that went off the hands of his running back and right into the hands of Travin Howard for a game-seeling interception.
Speaking of Howard, he was one of a ton of unsung heroes for the Rams in this game. I already mentioned Blanton, who had five catches for 56 yards in Higbee’s absence, but how about Nick Scott?
Perhaps no one’s stock has risen more than Scott the last few weeks as he has filled in for the Rams’ injured safeties and played almost at a Pro Bowl level. He had the hit of the day, leveling Samuel on a play across the middle of the field.
And speaking of safeties, how about Eric Weddle? The 37-year-old went from retired just three weeks ago to playing every snap in the NFC Championship Games and leading the Rams with nine total tackles to punch a ticket to his first career Super Bowl.
Greg Gaines and A’Shawn Robinson were also wreaking havoc all day, which was a big reason why the 49ers run game wasn’t what it usually is.
And finally, how about that Rams offensive line?
The 49ers have one of the best defensive fronts in the NFL, and they were only able to come with two sacks with Stafford having time to throw all day.
49ers defensive lineman Arik Armstead has been an absolute beast in recent weeks, recording 24 total tackles, six sacks and five tackles for loss in his last four games.
In this game though? Armstead did not record a single stat. No tackles, no sacks, no QB pressures. Nothing.
Unsung heroes have been coming through for the Rams all season, whether it be late-round draft picks, undrafted free agents, cheap free agents, practice squad members, etc. They have been a huge piece of this team’s success, and that’s also a credit to Les Snead and his team for finding that talent to surround the Rams’ superstars.
Let me just say though, this praise is all for naught if the Rams don’t finish the job. And in order to do so, they will have to beat the Cincinnati Bengals, who came up with their own come-from-behind victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game.
There are two weeks until Super Bowl LVI at SoFi Stadium, so these teams will have plenty of time to prepare for each other. Similiar to Shanahan, this will be another chess match for McVay against one of his former assistants in Zac Taylor.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow is also playing at a very high level, and their defense basically shut down Patrick Mahomes for the entire second half in the AFC Championship Game, so this will be no easy task for the Rams. There’s no doubt they know that and seem determined to finish the job though, finally winning that Super Bowl.
They now just have 60 more minutes to make that happen.
