Any Given Sunday—Stafford and the Rams Win the Big One

Vikings Territory Breakdown Super Bowl

The Los Angeles Rams beat the Cincinnati Bengals 20-16 in the Super Bowl last Sunday. That is the headline, but there are so many other sub-plots to recognize. Matthew Stafford left Detroit and got a ring (while his fellow Detroiter Eminem followed him to LA and knelt in honor of Colin Kaepernick—good on ya, mate), Rams owner Stan Kroenke build a winning team through trades and free agency (and hopefully built himself a private bathroom) and the Vikings get their new head coach in Rams offensive coach Kevin O’Connell.

The wealth was spread around to everywhere but Cincinnati, which came ever so close to winning the title and capping off an incredible turnaround of a franchise. At least they had the day off of school on Monday to sulk around home and lick their wounds. The Bengals do have the look of a team on the rise, however, and we should expect them (if they bolster their offensive line to protect star QB Joe Burrow) in the hunt for years to come. Just think, now at 0-3 in the Super Bowl, the Bengals have a chance to tie the Vikings and Buffalo Bills in the infamy of going 0-4 in the big game. (Truth be told, both the Bengals and the Bills have a better chance to get off that schnide than the Vikings do in the short term. Come out of the AFC in the coming years and you should be the favorite to win it all in my book.)

But it was a year when anyone could have won this thing, and somehow, the up and down Rams did. It took relentless defense and just enough offense (all through the air) to get it done—and the Rams exemplified both in the final two series of the game: a 15-play drive consisting of mostly Stafford to game MVP Cooper Kupp for the winning score and a Super Bowl-sealing sack by Aaron Donald, who made a strong case for his own MVP of the game in the second half.

Don’t expect the Rams to be back trying to knock off the Bengals, Bills or Chiefs in Super Bowl XVII, however, as this rent-a-team is already showing signs of disassembling. Super Bowl week comments from Donald hinted he was thinking about hanging it up if they would win, and the same was floated by head coach Sean McVay, the youngest Super Bowl winning coach in history. His staff is being plundered—O’Connell to Minnesota and who knows where next for defensive coordinator Raheem Morris—and it will be difficult to hold all that high-priced talent under the cap. But who can fault the Rams for trading away draft picks to go all-in for this one when this April those draft picks will come at the very end of every round?

More importantly, how much of that high-powered offense belongs to the creativity of the O’Connell, Vikings new head coach? Who is he going to hire on the offensive coaching staff to carry out his vision for the Vikings’ most talented side of the ball? His defensive staff has been cobbled together all week, so we can only hope they are already scouring the league and the college draft for players to improve on their side of the ball.

A new era in Minnesota Vikings football begins today and the work already started yesterday. So, Mark Craig from the Star Tribune and myself will assemble to discuss it all on the Vikings Territory Breakdown podcast. We also look at another Purple defeat, as Jared Allen didn’t get voted into the Hall of Fame—and we can ask Craig, a presenter of Allen and a voter for the Hall, just what happened. We will look at some other headlines from around the league, plus take a deep dive on the new regime at Triple K Ranch—Kwesi, Kevin and Kirk. Tune into check it out.

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