A detailed preview of Super Bowl LVI

Prediction

I talked about a bunch of tendencies for both these squads and certain matchups to keep your eyes on. One more tidbit I could share here is how much the Rams love to hit those blaze-outs as drive-starters – by the single-receiver in three-by-one sets. We saw Titans safety Kevin Byard make a phenomenal play on one of those, where he undercut the route and took it back to the house for a game-changing pick-six (shown in the most recent clip). The Cincy corners are pretty aggressive with the way they drive on those. So I’m interested to see if that happens at some point or maybe the Rams stay a step ahead and hit a big play on an out-and-up off that. The teams had two full weeks to prepare and self-scout. Those little mind-games will be huge.

Both head coaches and offensive play-callers come from the Shanahan coaching tree more broadly and at this point you can identify a Sean McVay tree, but McVay still brings more creativity to the table and has that ability to stay one step ahead with little wrinkles and change-ups usually. While the defensive coordinators on either side may not be as well-regarded among more casual fans, they will have a few things up their sleeves and I’m sure will throw some change-ups out there as well. And these are the two least-penalized teams on a yards basis (37.6 and 37.0 yards per game), with quarterbacks that have led five and six game-winning drives respectively.

This is also a kind of war between football “purists” and fans of analytics, as the Rams were fifth overall in DVOA as a team throughout the regular season, while the Bengals have the third-lowest DVOA we’ve seen from a Super Bowl team in NFL history, finishing at a dead-even 0.0%. Obviously if you just look at the playoffs, that number improves, but there will be people on either side of this, ready to let their opinions be heard once that final whistle is blown.

Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald and quarterback Matthew Stafford celebrating their NFC title

Rams 24 – 20 Bengals

As I go through the rosters and look at how these two groups match up schematically and the experience they bring to the table, I have to give L.A. the edge in this matchup.

It sounds crazy at this point, because Joe Burrow took nine sacks at Tennessee and he literally had to shrug off Chiefs defenders in the backfield to single-handedly convert some of those big third downs along the way, but I just have problems seeing the Bengals offensive line hold up against that ferocious defensive front across from them. I like a lot of the stuff they do offensively, but unless they completely break tendency, there’s too many ways the Rams can get those guys into third-and-long situations.

On the other hand, as good as Matthew Stafford has been in the playoffs, there can be a lack of patience in terms of wanting to hit big plays and trying to punish a safety for staying flat-footed a beat too long. If that guy is Jessie Bates, I’m not sure who I’d put money on between the two. So if the Bengals do sit back in the zone and Stafford has the ball in his hands a lot, it’ll be up to that offensive coaching staff to create some favorable one-on-ones anyway, by getting their opponents to match early in the route patterns and not pass off receivers once it turns into man.

Both teams can find ways to have success on the ground, but they can’t do it out of obvious personnel sets. The quarterbacks on either side will be tested to not push the envelope too much, while delivering some big plays when needed in key situations.

MVP: Matthew Stafford

This is a huge legacy game for Stafford, who could go from many people (who only listen to mainstream media primarily) thinking he’s this stat-padder, who never was able to win in Detroit to a star quarterback who just needed to go to a winning environment. 45 of 55 Super Bowl MVPs have been offensive players and 31 of those have been quarterbacks. So this is a fairly easy call for me. It might not be the greatest statistical game, but he’ll avoid the costly mistakes and deliver a few big throws on key downs.

I also think this will be huge for one of the greatest defensive players in NFL history in Aaron Donald, being challenged with trying to bring down Burrow – who just refused to die against the Chiefs – and one of the great revenge stories by one of the seemingly forgotten superstars in Odell Beckham Jr., who was labelled a diva receiver and bad teammate in Cleveland, being a key contributor now for this group in Hollywood, as they both get to hoist that Lombardi trophy.

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