The Ringer NFL Show - Super Bowl LVI Recap

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

Kevin, Nora, and Ben recap how the Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl. They pick out who the biggest winners and losers are, discuss what the future looks like for the Rams and Bengals, and more. Hosts: Kevin Clark, Nora Princiotti, and Benjamin Solak Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Benefer is back. Brad and Jen are friends again, and Paris Hilton is somehow still making headlines. 20 years later, we're living in the world that the 2000s tabloids created. On this series, I'm going to tell you the story of a decade of American life through the trash we love to consume. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Claire Malone, and this is just like us, the tabloids that changed America. Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the Ringwrenfell show, part of the Ringer podcast Network from SoFi Stadium, where literally, if there's any background noise, it's friends and family of Rams players and coaches, I guess, frolicing on the field.

Is frowling the right word, Ben Solac? I saw somebody, like, gather up a bunch of confetti for, like, a couple of minutes so they could, like, do a confetti angel, and I find that very disingenuous. Wow. You were not on the field early enough for full confetti angel, like, ton of confetti time. And so they, like, synthetically generated enough confetti to make it look like, they were on the field during maximal confetti hours. Oh, I just blew up somebody's Instagram story.

That person worked hard for their confetti angel. They worked for that Instagram story. I agree. I'm with you, Nora Pinciotti. Hello? Hello? What's going on? The Super Bowl.

This was Ben Solak's first in-person Super Bowl. Yeah, man. He spent most of the time being extremely excited about football. Kevin was, I think Kevin wasn't the biggest fan of sitting next to me. That's not true. That's not true. Oh, that's nice. That's not true.

I enjoyed it immensely. It was not the pretty. game in the middle, but there were those really big flashes and then man-oh-man, those last seven minutes were awesome. The one thing I'll say about saying next to you is one thing I'd anticipate, so there's all sorts of rules about not cheering in the press box. I'm fine with Ben, respected that.

They never made a rule about not cheering for props. No, and you do have to do that a little bit quietly. Nor should they. It's the one thing they haven't outlawed. And Ben Solac is just going to run right through that loophole. Absolutely. And listen, we love a good fourth and one hand off to Cooper Cup. I think it's a very clever play. It shows that Sean McVeigh knows what he's doing as a coach.

whatsoever. All right, so let's get started. So the Rams, the Cincinnati Bengals, in a disjointed, but extremely interesting game. A lot of storylines, a lot of players that need to have the spotlight shown on them. For me, this was the plan. Like, this is why you assemble a super team. And a lot of the, you know, I was just jotting down some notes and talking to the players down in the tunnel. You know, a lot of what we think is football destiny is really just team

building and planning. And it's Aaron Donald on fourth and one. And Chao McVeigh swears. that, and he said that he was miced up, so this will come out and it'll be confirmed. He swears that on fourth and one, he said to his coaches, this game is over, Aaron Donald's about to get a sack. They just wanted Patrick Mahomes, wasp the moment. I understand that. It's the same thing where it's just like, well, you know what, they also.

Or an Evan McPherson were going to the AFC championship games. But also just like impress me with something a little more obscure, Sean. Oh, we have Aaron Donnelly's going to blow the game up. But what I'm saying is it's like, this is why you assemble a super team. It's Cooper Cup against Eli Apple in the back of the end zone. It's Matthew Stafford making more throws than Jared Goughcan. This was the plan. That's what football destiny is.

It's the plan. Nora, what did you think? Well, you're right to say that because in some ways there's a whole bunch of stuff that happened in the middle of this game that was weird and wacky and you couldn't have seen it coming. The big picture was exactly what we thought it was going to be. The Rams set a Super Bowl record for a number of sacks. Joe Burrow was under an immense amount of pressure, was forced to get the ball out in like

two seconds flat, basically every time. that he was throwing. Stafford had half a second more to throw. That's an eternity. That is an eternity. Yeah. In football Offen, Ben Solac could find a new DFS team in half a second. And Ken has. And probably that was to my detriment during the course

of the day, just constantly finagling. So look, the Bengals finished with a 14% pass block win rate, which is the worst by any team in any game this season that's according to next gen stats. Burrow down in the tunnel, very complimentary of the offensive line, said they did the job that they needed to do.

That is the right thing to say if you're a quarterback. When it comes to what we just saw, what you see on the stat sheet, what we watched on the field, you cannot argue that that wasn't massively, massively impactful. Not just in the Rams defensive line being able to blow up plays, but in what the Bengals in some ways had to play this game with a hand tied behind their backs. Because they went into this clearly thinking he has to get the ball out in two seconds. and you're playing just with an intrinsic limitation. And there were some guys, like CJ Zoma said, that's the franchise right there, Joe Burrow. We don't want to see the franchise take that number of hits.

Yeah, act like it. Yeah, you don't want it. Literally the football version of, oh, you hate to see that. You hate to see it. You don't love it. We'd love to be able to do something, but, you know, our hands are tied. Look, the good news is that they can do something in this offseason. We've got, we're not going to get to the off season yet.

But I will say something that struck me just being in the mix with the Bengals guys. I know you guys spent a lot of time with the Rams. You did get a sense that they understand that they're a young team. Joe Burrow talked about watching Kurt Warner's football life. What a moment for Kurt Warner's football life being mentioned at the Super Bowl post game Warner. But his takeaway was that Kurt Warner talked about regretting. not sort of celebrating the accomplishment of getting to a Super Bowl, we've seen a lot of teams lose the Super Bowl and struggle in the years after that

because it can be something that kind of gets to a team mentally. I do think that the Bengals seem to have some understanding of that, but the biggest question is what they are going to do so that Burrow, you know, does not end up the next Andrew Luck. There are times when it feels like that's in play. Okay, but my problem with that is that the Chiefs basically, rearranged the eight months between February and when they started

the season to get a new offensive line. They traded a first-round pick for Orlando Brown. Jerry's kind of still out on that. They hit on obviously two really good rookies, and that was fortuitous. But I don't know if the Bengals want to go all in on an offensive line. That's just not something that they

do, and they invest capital and money, and they signed Joe Tunney to one of the biggest contracts in offensive line history. They've spent on free agents. I'm just saying, I don't know. I don't, in the same way, Brett Veach found Patrick Mahomes was at this game last year in the elevator bank and said, we're going to fix this. I don't know if Duke, Duke Tobin, I'm sure it's going to try.

I don't know if at the same level of effort because they're different franchises. Counterpoint, the Bengals have proven that they can get to the last game of the season, get to the Super Bowl with really, really, really poor play there. With the quarterback being under just an extreme amount of pressure, it needs to be a little better. It doesn't need to be leaps and bounds.

They have some cap space. they need to take a step forward. Yeah, I think on Bengals' offensive line, we talk about offensive line play. The most important thing to understand is how bad is your fifth guy, not how good is your first guy. We always talk about office line play has to be a holistic idea, right? The Bengals drafted Jamar Chasins had a penny stool in the first round. Everybody talks about that. But in the second round, they drafted Jackson Carman.

He was a tackle out of Clemson and they wanted him to win a guard spot for them. He couldn't do it. So sixth round pick two years ago, Akima Deney is playing right guard. Your fifth offensive lineman was a massive liability. This team was in the AFC championship game two weeks ago, and they switched Adenegi out at halftime for Carmen, which they'd already switched Carmen back to Adenegi and back to Carmen during the regular season. They were still trying to find one dude who could win that job in the AFC championship game. The issue for them was that their fifth and their fourth guy, right?

You talk about quitting Spain, the left guard, were really, really rough. So they don't need to do what the chiefs did in terms of a wholesale change. Nor do I think you can just because you're not going to get Orlando Brown demanding to playing the left side because of his pops, Trey Smith falling to the sixth round because of blood clots. Like the Chiefs caught a lot of really good rolls of the dice to fully redo that line.

You need to get two like Riley Reefs again. And remember, Reef went down this season. Into the building. Veterans, because this line doesn't have to be good. It doesn't have to be high investment. That's not the way this team is built. It has to be average enough to get you a couple of buckets, especially on late down.

So they were really, really bad in this game. They don't have to go crazy on the investment. Just raise the floor. So it's not a liability. We can reframe the problem as it's not necessarily fix the offensive line by turning it into a team's strength. It's, DENUGY doesn't start the Super Bowl.

Yeah, sure. Okay. Ben, who is the best playing in the field tonight? Okay. Donald. Yeah. I would say, I went to like six players in my head, right? And I think Cupp...

You can give it the other candidates as well after we don't want Donald. I think Cup played a really good game for the limitations that were put on him, especially once O'Dell went down. I thought, like, you know, Stafford had two picks, but I don't think either was particularly. particularly terrible, right? Like the Van Jefferson Scramble play was a little bit of an arm punt on a third and long, you know, end of the first half.

The second pick was it was a tipped ball. So I thought Stafford generally played well. Vaughn was unbelievable, especially first half. Vaughn was winning on over half of his rushes. Incredible. But at the end of the day, Donald had like, he had the key play, right? He had the sack. He had another sack on a second down to put Burrell way back in the end zone, get the ramps in good field position.

But even beyond that, right? He had to, nor you treated it. he made a tackle with his wrist. Like he made like a one paw tackle on Joe Mixing and a gap. On the on the Samajai, P. Ryan third and one run, right before the fourth and one, he got a hook around P. Ryan and then just sat down. And P. Ryan drags 95% of the tackles in this league to that first down mark. He doesn't drag Donald.

There's so many little margin plays where Donald takes a five-yard gain and makes it a three-yard gain. Takes a three-yard gain. It makes it a one-yard gain. They just add up over time, over time, over time. And then you get to fourth and one. As McVeigh said, we kind of saw that they were going to pass it once they came out and gone four wide. And at that point, McVegos, you know, his bold prediction, I think Donald might take over his game. And everybody knew that's coming out to he is. So if I were voting,

I probably am giving Donald the MVP. I fully understand Cup getting it. I agree. And a lot of players made really good plays, but Donald, yeah. I wonder, I didn't, I didn't get, sometimes I get the vote. Sometimes I don't. It kind of depends where you are in the press box and whatever. But, like, I wonder if maybe, I don't know. I honestly don't know. Maybe the vote was, was helped. Maybe too many people got the vote in before the last drive. To me, right, it was Cup had two, total touches, two total targets in all the drives before the final drive. One of them was the wide receiver handoff third and five you're going to throw. So we had one real like cut make a play for us. On the final drive, he had five. And so it really felt like that final drive was the drive

that they found Cup and the drive that cup got it done for them. And I get why that narrative got built. But at the same time, that Rams defense took an immediate 10 point swing in the second half and then sat down. And to me, that's Donald. And that final drive, a lot of the Bengals defenders talked about that Rams drive as just a really good punch where they finally made an adjustment. There was a lot of frustrating play calling from the Rams throughout the early parts of this game getting on later and later and later. But it felt like they got to that point and they'd sort of internalized, okay, we don't have OBJ anymore.

We are going to go a little bit more up tempo. Ben, I think you made, when we were chatting up in the press box, you made an impressive point about them spreading out a little bit more. A lot of the Bengals defenders talked about that, just getting them out of their rhythm a little bit. And the other piece of that was just, that was the Cooper Cup drive. And that was the Rams punch to let's go win this game. This is our best chance to do it. So I understand it on those terms.

I could go either way with that one. But I still, I don't know, I don't mind the cup pick. The other thing is that, so Sean McVeigh said that the Bengals at the end were in regulated looks, which I felt to mean basic and spread out. I had to go back and look at old McVeigh articles to figure out what regulated me. Ben Solad was so mad about the term regulated looks because it wasn't specific enough. He came up to me and was like, can I ask the Rams for clarification? And I was like, probably not.

No, you can. You can do it. Do it. Send an email. Rams at nfl.com. Listen, we're all writers here. Does the word regulated mean basic? It can.

You can explain all of this in the MNF booth next year. The Odell injury changed what then? Okay, so the Rams all year, I said all year, since the Odell trade, wanted to live in three by one. They're going to three receivers to one side, one receiver to the other. Usually that one backside receiver is the best guy.

For the Bengals is Jamar Chase. Makes sense. For the Rams, it's Odell Beckham Jr. It lets them put cup in the slot, it lets them play a numbers game. You want to bracket this guy? You want to put one inside and one outside? You're giving us one-on-one with Odell Beckham Jr.

We like that a lot. We're going to run that till the cows come home. So all that backside dig, backside glance, right, where they get that isolated guy and they hit him in the intermediate middle, that's O'Dell. So now you're going up against a Bengals defense. That's really comfortable dropping a lot of guys into coverage, and you don't have a dude that's going to punish one-on-ones.

All of a sudden, in playing whack-a-mole with Cooper Cup gets a lot harder. Wherever he goes, we're just going to push coverage to that side. We're just going to get as many zone defenders clogging up those looks as possible. They ran man as well, but they got brackets on 11, right? Talk about, we're going to, or brackets on 10, excuse me. We're going to find that guy and just put two on him. And if Van Jefferson beats us on a slot fade, Van Jefferson's going to beat us on a slot fade. Guess what Van Jefferson did not do. Beat us on a slot fade. The McVeigh failure was,

all right, when I'm not getting my guy open on my typical stuff, what am I going to go to? I want to go to my play action pass. I'm going to go under center. And the first half, that was great for them. Under center play action pass, four for five, 54 yards and a touchdown for Matt Stafford. He was only averaging about six attempts under center play action in the regular season, gets five in the first half. They were cooking on those sorts of looks. And then McVeigh fell into the trap, which is the worst trap for McVeigh, particularly among all these Shanahan guys, which is if I'm going to run under center play action, I have to run from under center. I have to do it.

They have to respect it. They have to see it. So second and three, let's run from under center. Sonny Michelle, baby. We got it. Second and four, let's get Van Jefferson in a block, baby. Ben Scaronic. Ben Scarana is going to block for us.

My running is a duo. It's going to be sick. And it just never worked. For four quarters, it never worked. And that's really, really frustrating. The Rams were at negative point four on EPA per play on rushing downs. As you saw tweeted during the game, they had, I think, 16% of their runs were successful runs. One of the worst percentages we've seen in six years of NGS charting, it was abysmal.

So what happens when we're doing that in the entire second half? Kendall Blanton goes down as well in the tight end, and we just say, all right, we're going to take four receivers. That's all we've got right now. We have Cup, Ben Scaronic, we have Van Jefferson. We have Bryson Hopkins who had one target in the regular season. And we have nobody else in the depth chart below these guys. Like, this is all we have. We're going to put four.

We're going to spread them out. And if we get a look for cup, balls go into cup. And that's what you meant by regulated looks. They went tempo. They went spread. They got the vangles into zones. And then they asked Stafford, that which golf cannot do. Hit these holes between zones.

Hit them hard. Hit them hard. Hit them hard. And that no look, 22 yards slant to cup is a perfect encapsulation of a quarterback that is able to take advantage of a tight window in zone, gets you an explosive play. You're up by three. Nora, going all in work. It worked. It really worked.

I guess the question is, like, at some point, you look at the age of these guys, you look at the well behind it. We're talking about like half of them are going to retire now. I know. It's amazing, maybe the coach. Aaron Donald. It might be Aaron Donald's last game. I mean, it feels like there's a possibility here that this was the peak. I guess, I guess the ring of term would be Apex Mountain.

But also, it worked. Like it worked. This is what it's for. And like this is not, you know, we did this a couple weeks ago with, with the Bengals or, oh, the Bengals, you know, we can't say that it worked.

It worked because they got to the Super Bowl. For the Rams, this whole thing, the last three, four years, everything they did, it was for this moment. They're in their home stadium. Like this, this objectively worked.

Yeah, hats off too, because look, that ratchets up the pressure. Like, I found it a little startling how not completely shattered the Bengals were at least able to pull themselves together and seen. I have seen losing Super Bowl teams before. They tend to be a little bit more lost in the wilderness than Cincinnati just looked down there. And I think part of that is because they know they're young. I'm sure

part of it is that they feel horrible internally and they were able to put on a good face. And the little bit of house money in the sense that was going, that was going to be my point. They did not enter into the January going, here we go, baby. It was more like, yeah. Whereas for L.A., if you lose here. Like losing the Super Bowl should not be this grand indictment on a team. But when you're not picking in the first round until 3,027, it becomes a little bit more if you don't do the thing that all of this was for, what was it all for in the first place? And for a quarterback like Matthew Stafford, who has not been in this moment before, we know that people, you know, look, we try to be sort of smart, numbers-based, analytical about things. People crumble in difficult.

moments. Sometimes we've talked about players who are good under pressure, actually just being the ones who don't change under pressure. And it's a real credit that L.A. was able to handle those circumstances.

You guys have been talking about coaching? Heck yeah. Yes. Where do you want to start? Where do you want to start? Seems like there's somewhere you want to go here, Kevin. Let's talk about Zach Taylor first. Kevin had a little glint in his eye there that told No, no, no, truly.

I mean, I, I, I, I, borough winning would have been the better story, right? And so that, to me, it's not, I don't, I don't take any great pleasure in, in, Zach Taylor. And it was interesting, um, Ben Solac asked the question to Taylor after the game. Why did you go at Jalen Ramsey? He basically said, we're not scared of anybody. We're going to go at them all game.

He made the point. They, they, he said, I don't know if this was just an empty gesture, but he said they were going down to win. I don't, I mean, obviously, it was one second left and they were at the 40 yard. They were at the field goal. But they were. going to try to win the game. They were not selling for field goal. Having said that,

second and one, you are perilously close, if you're the Rams, to giving Evan McPherson field goal range. He's that good. And they didn't get anything from it. Ben, how would you pick the nits of that last drive? Somaget, P. Ryan, instead of Joe Mekston

on third down feels really bad. Also feels really bad on fourth down. Well, fourth and one shotgun is fine. In theory, you need one yard to extend the Super Bowl. Right. Figure it out. Yeah.

They had a third and two earlier in the game. They went shotgun, four yard pass to Jamar Chase. They had a third and three earlier in the game, when shotgun, Joe Burrow sacked for nine yards. They had a fourth and one earlier in the game, when shotgun, Joe Burrow scramble for four yards, right? So they've been showing the Rams all game, third and one, fourth and one. We're going to give you shotgun. We're going to give you a pass look. The number one, I shouldn't say that.

There have been a lot of criticisms about Zach Taylor. I think the one that's most coherent and the one that was most applicable over the course of the season is that the running game and the passing game were not married in the way that you typically see of a Sean McVey offense and that you typically see

just a successful offense. When we put a lookout pre-snap, you don't really know if we're about to run it or pass it. Seth Kling of a PFF use the term siloed. These two ideas are siloed. That really hurt the Bengals in those key moments because third and one, you walk out with Pryne, we all know he's your passing down back.

You know, you've been taking Joe fixing off the field after second down all game, all week, all season. All right. We'll play dime. And the Rams walked out early drives with one linebacker, five down linemen, five, right, their typical fronts, three, three, five, against the Bengals on first and ten. Like, they're going to know what you're giving them when you're so clear with when, when your backs are out.

And if you're in shotgun versus center, center, what it is you're going to do. So the challenge for Zach Taylor is when you get to this point, late game, one score, third and X, got to have it. You'd like to be able to do something a little bit deceitful. You'd like to not tip your hand and be playing behind 45 to 55% before the ball's even snapped. The most impressive thing that I found at the end of this game is the fact that the Bengals offense, one for three on late down runs, that's third and fourth down, and then three for 14 on late down, third and fourth down passes.

It's a really good performance by Harry Morris's defense, and it shows you that he knows, he understands and can create designer, looks for what he's likely to get on those late downs. That's the challenge for Zach Taylor's. Can you create a better offense to have some deception in those key moments? And it compounds itself because of the issues with facing pressure and needed to get the ball out so quickly because we see, for instance, we see that this offense really struggle in the red zone.

And the problem with combining Borough has to get the ball out so quickly, there isn't as much marriage between run and pass that puts defenders in conflict because they don't quite know where they're going to have to go. then when the field gets condensed, you have so many fewer buttons where you have a linebacker who doesn't know which way he needs to go. That putting those guys in conflict, which is so essential,

it happens more and more rarely, particularly as the field gets squished up. And I think that's why sometimes we see this offense, be able to win some one-on-ones when there's a little bit more space on the field, but then when the field gets shorter into the red zone, it gets more difficult. It was a big point from Nora during the game,

and she was right on it. Every time that Bengals' offense gone to the red zone, Nora was like, oh, this just sucks. Here we go. This is just ugly. That's where you want your designer look. That's where you want your bucket. Yeah, and, you know, Joe Mixing touchdown pass at T. Higgins,

cool. That's a nice trick play. It's kind of middle ground there, where it's like a tendency breaker that doesn't involve having to do like a gadgety sort of play. That's the thing of deficiency for the Bengals right now. Sean McVeigh wins the Super Bowl

One of the things And we were joking about You know Me not liking Stay Next to Solak I loved it Because at one point I think you would have You would have fought Sean McVe

At one point during this game Yeah I said I said I mean I usually say that I forget to fight somebody Yeah this is actually not at all a rare Correct Explain your Sean McVe And listen it was obvious It was obvious to everybody who watched the game

but let's go a little deeper. You were real mad at Sean McVeigh tonight. And I was, too, just from a play calling standpoint. It was disjointed game in large part because of some of the play calling. It was interesting because, you know, this is kind of the world Sean McVeigh has created where his old assistants are now coaching against him in Super Bowls. And he, McVeigh actually said, you know, Zach Taylor coach, the Bengals played the same way we did.

And the Rams that were able to just make a couple more plays. That's not a million miles away from the truth. Sean McVeigh in this game, Ben Solek. Right. So the continued frustration is the reliance on running plays, especially early down running plays, and the narrow world in which he runs the football. When McVeigh puts these bunches on the field, right, bunch sets, three receivers, all in a tight little bunch,

he puts them right up next to the tackle. And in the Jared golf offense, those sort of formations were about 60% run, 40% pass, right? Because they would run the ball on him, and then they would go play action pass off of them. And they needed that play action pass to carry Jared Gough down the field a little bit. Then he got Matthew Stafford. Sick, we can throw the ball more now.

That formation became 83, 85% run for him on the season. That's how he knows to run the football. We run out of these looks with these tight guys. We run outside zone. We run duo, and we do it well. We have Robert Woods. He can block for us. Cooper Cup.

He can block for us. Tyler Higby, he's a good blocker. Robert Woods won in his game. Tyler Higby wasn't in this game. They're asking Van Jefferson and Ben, question mark. Van Jefferson and Ben Scoronic and Kendall Blanton. to dig Sam Hubbard and Trey Hendrickson, two really good run defending edges out of the sea gap.

First, you're going to run it. First, you've got to get a little bit more creative than that. But secondly, there has to be an understanding. They had two drives late in the third, and then to start the fourth ball on their 47 and their 48, 53 and 52 yards to go. They had a second in five. Cam Acres run for negative two yards.

They had a second in three. Sonny Michelle, a run for negative one yards. They would get to the second and short, and they would run it under center to get tight because that's what McVeigh runs out of and if they could get it, then they could set up a play action shot. And the Bengals just all game disrespected that.

At one point in the game, Next Gen stats tweeted this out, they had zero successful runs. They were one of five teams in six years of charting to have zero successful runs. The other four teams finished the game with single digit runs, single digit total rush temps,

none of them successful. The Rams at that time at 18. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it's clearly broke, please fix it. The greatest what if from this game for me will be what happens if Kendall Blanton doesn't hurt his shoulder at the end of the third quarter? Because Blanton was their run blocking tight end. And they were putting him in there to run block.

He's out. He doesn't take a single snap in the fourth quarter. Bryson Hopkins come in. They start to go a little more spread. Bryson Hopkins is a big wide receiver. He's not a blocker at all. And it felt like McVeigh came to a solution. It felt like McVeigh finally figured it out.

Man, if Kendall Blanton doesn't get hurt, there's a chance he doesn't. there's a chance he would have gone right back to the well and expected them to execute on what he's always done. And this scoreboard would read 20 to 16 and we'd be having a whole separate conversation. So shadow Kendall Blanton to be a real big folk room and a large what if for this game and for McVeigh's legacy.

Well, and Ben, I think you looked it up. The Rams love to run out of those type formations and NextGen stats had their, they were three yards further spread out on the final drive. In the first 11 drives, the Rams formation with is from Kegan Abduit next-gen stats was 23.1 yards. On the game winning drive, it was 26.5.

Which 3.5 yards is a really, really big difference in terms of charting. It goes how wide are those widest receivers? Also, on the first 11 drives, they were 54% trips. On that final drive, they were 33% trips. They went from 16% 2 by 2, which is those 4 open spread out formations to 40% 2x2. That offense on the last drive, they did not run. That was not the offense of the first 11 drives. and it's because there was a needed change.

It was a good change. It got Cooper Cup the ball. But it's also kind of because Kendall Blanton was out. Right. And that was the, maybe it was just like the final, the straw that broke the camel's back, if you will. But Candle Blatton's shoulder is a really big part of this Ram Super Bowl win. And it's particularly, it's frustrating that it took it that long to get there.

In part because, okay, you wouldn't want to think that a Kendall Blanton injury is the thing that's going to force you into the type of offense that is going to, going to take advantage of the offensive player of the year and the quarterback that you spent multiple first round picks to get. But sometimes that's it with coaches, right? It's like, this is what we practice during the week. This is what we know. And then you put their back up against a wall.

You put them between a rock and a hard place. And I would imagine, I tried to get it out of the ramps players. Couldn't really get it. There was a conversation on the sideline. Stafford Cup, McVeigh, somebody said something to somebody. It was like, all right, we just got to spread. And this is why we get to sit at the 325 concourse level and nitpick the super Bowl winning coach after the game.

Yes. Isn't it a beautiful world? All right. Matthew Stafford's won a Super Bowl. I really thought that when Eminem came out and did lose yourself and then the Rams and Stafford had the 22 seconds from hell coming out of half time, I really thought he'd reverted back to full lion. It was, it felt like Detroit.

I was worried. I was worried. I thought that Detroit had extended its tentacles into SoFi Stadium and had pulled Matthew Stafford back into the war. tax, but he prevailed. So let's talk about this. They acquired Matt Stafford for a scheme expansion because Sean McFay wanted to do all these things and all these throws that Jared

Goff simply couldn't make. Jared Goff, I think they felt was they had tapped out what Jared Goff could do. They went out, they traded two first Sean Pick for Matthew Stafford. What showed up tonight that was a difference, and I know this is a very simple question, but what showed up today that was the difference between the golf offense and the Stafford offense that mattered in the fourth quarter? I think it's what we've talked about in terms of that no look throw to cup in terms of being able to go spread.

Remember, they're also in tempo at this time, which means... The tempo, every single Bengals player mentioned the tempo. Yes. And what it is is those regulated looks, right? Oh, my God, he did it. You got McVade. I'm saying it so that the listener knows we're calling back to it, sir. Those static looks.

He hated McVeigh saying regulated looks. Now he's all about regulated looks. Now he's all about regulated looks. Solac's going to get a whole-old coaching job. Ben Selleck is the next head coach of the Rams. That's how this ends. When McVeigh references those regulated looks, when you're going tempo,

you're keeping the same personnel on the field, and you're giving them those spread looks, and they were confident they could get zone out of the Bengals on that. And then when you're getting zone, you're asking Stafford to say you're an elite quarterback with an elite arm, beat zone for us. Don't get fooled. Don't get got.

And like that slant cup is a perfect example of holding Von Bell with your eyes such that it was basically a no look pass, and then being able to throw cup into the window, hit him in stride, yards after the catch, 22 yards. That was the explosive passing play for the Rams.

After they lost Odell, no explosives. A lot of intermediate stuff, but quick tackles right after the intermediate, that was the explosive. And so I think that adjustment you don't fully get with golf.

You can put yourself in it, but you're a lot less confident that the guy's going to be able to execute and he's going to be able to have that control. And so I think Stafford changes that, but that's a microcosm, right? It gets compounded larger and larger over the course of the game in the season.

Another difference. So Stafford will pull the trigger on some throws that I think Gough doesn't, right? Like he will yolo ball into tight coverage, particularly because he does work that those intermediate passes the middle of the field quite a bit. And what happens there? There's more traffic. There's more guys. I think, I'm not sure Jared Gough is releasing the football in all those situations. To where he was going to throw an interception and throwing an interception.

That was a little bit of a golf move. That was wonderful. Someone to tell Matthew Devin' The point is to point, do the Mahomes point and then do something else with the ball. Okay, we can't call it the Mahomes point. All quarterback's point.

Like, go this way on the scramble drill. That's not the Mahomes. Matthew Stafford pointed directly at a spot on the field. And then the defender ran there and Matthew Stafford threw the ball there. Van Jefferson needed to put on his work boots and actually contest the catch. Do you know what Mahomes does that actually

I think he has innovated is pretending to throw the ball 10 yards past the line of scrimmage? That's good. That's a scramble. Nothing. better than a pump faking you're the first down marker. He must be so good at faking throwing the tennis ball for his dogs.

Oh, it's just wonderful. Let's do some winners and losers here. The biggest winner tonight could be anybody. Who is it, Nora? He's Sean McVeigh. Yeah. Yeah. Big save for Sean.

Big save. Well, also, it's a vindication of everything he's built. It's not just that we were going to get, like, the stakes were not that we were going to get mad at him on the ring around a fellow show for running the ball. It's also just like, he's built this program over five years. And what's interesting to me is that Joe Burrow is the ultimate, as a player, is the ultimate kind of get rich quick scheme, right? Where it's just like, he comes in, he solves all of your problems,

and the Bengals did a lot of things well. But like, it was one move. It was drafting Joe Burrow, let Joe Burrow do everything. And then you are in the Super Bowl, and you're almost just as good as the team that spent five years doing everything possible to get here, right? And that's the kind of funny part of it is the Rams are like, we're going all in, we're trading two, a second and a third for Von Miller.

We're signing OBJ, we're doing all these different things. And the Bengals are like, yeah, well, we drafted that guy. And we let him call the place. good. And we're just as good. CJ's almost like, what's going on about Burrow? And he was like, yeah, I mean, when he's calling all of our plays, it's so dynamic, it's so important to us.

And Zach Taylor's just like, uh, that was over there talking to Solac going, we're not scared of anybody. Meanwhile, Joe Burroughs got the play sheet. But yeah, Sean McVeigh is, I would say, the winner, right? I agree. Well, I do have one correction. I do think the stakes were being made fun of on the ringer NFL show. Do you think I was in his head?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The pressure is getting to him. You got to know us. Anybody else before you get to losers? I have a loser in mind. Can we like alternate? Yeah, go ahead.

Not the best Jalen Ramsey game. Yes. And there was a way that that became very important if the scoreboard read different. The T. Higgins catch was like maybe like incidental, not exactly OPI. It looked worse in the moment. Yeah, and like the screenshot of his head snapped around

with the face mask. Yeah, and the moment it looked bad. He's probably without the face mask still slug. fighting way beyond T. Higgins, not making a tackle, not breaking up the past. With that said, it's probably OPI. That aside, the Jamar Chase catch, which that was a really fun catch to share with you guys, because all three of us with the angle we had were positive he wasn't catching it. It looked like he was throwing the ball away from our angle.

And then for the whole like two seconds after chasing the ball connected in the air, we were all just trying to find where the ball bounced. Like, oh, I wonder where the incompletion went. And then we kind of realized, wait, if there's no ball, Chase has the ball. ball. It's in his hand. The way it looked from our angle, which was the corner of the end zone. Opposite, yeah. It looked like the ball was in the air, and then Chase took the long way around.

Ramsey, it was just like, yeah, I'm just going to walk around. It's like when you're trying to squeeze through it apart. You're just like, hey, I'll just go around you. That's what he did. And he still caught the ball. And that's why I say it wasn't the best game for Ramsey in the sense that I thought, I think Ramsey watched a lot of film on Joe Burrow, who if our colleague, Stephen Ruiz were here, would know, does not have the strongest.

arm in the world and really felt like he could get one. And he was sitting on a lot of routes and he was ready to jump a Jamar Chase comeback. And then they had that one. They had the first play of what could have been the game tying or game winning drive where Jamar Chase turned him around underneath and then broke an angle on him and got a bit of an explosive gain. That Ramsey Chase battle was really built up to be a big thing. And obviously it was a huge T. Higgins day.

Congrats to T. Higgins got his catch on Jalen Ramsey. But in the Chase Ramsey stuff, Chase got his more than Ramsey. did. And for that not to be a big Ramsey game and the Rams still to be as successful as they were, is a testament to just how scared the Bengals were of that pass rush and how successful it was. I don't want to roast Eli Apple.

I just want to go back to something I said earlier, which is that when you go all in as a franchise, eventually you get Cooper Cup on Eli Apple. That's sort of what happens. When it's a team that stacks talent against a team that doesn't stack talent or is

is it just in a different in a different stage of their process. And remember, this has happened very quickly for the Bengals. Happen very quickly for the Bengals. They didn't have time to say, we got to have a guy who's going to be able to cover Cooper Cup. The thing about the Bengals, they have not had an offseason where they're good.

They don't know what that's like. And that's kind of what we're talking about the offensive line. We don't know how they've operated because we've never seen them on this sort of, in this sort of rarefied air. And that's why I'm interested to see if next year, if they are in a big game, do they have these sort of mismatches? Speaking of Eli Apple, I will say another version of going all in is talking some smack. Yeah.

Over the course of an entire week. Eli Apple and Quinn in Spain were really sure, like they were going to have big moments. Yeah. I respect it. I respect it. Yeah. Keep it going. Yeah, absolutely.

I'll live it. I'll say winner in that regard, though, Duke Tobin. We've talked a little bit about that. And I know we want to get some offseason thoughts in here. Duke Tobin, Trey Brown, the scouting staff that they have in Cincinnati, man. Eli Apple, notwithstanding. Cheeto Ouzier, good game. Trey Hendrickson, really good game.

DJ Reader, good game. Logan Wilson, who like, this has been like a lot of talk about like the veterans that they brought in the free agent signings. Logan Wilson is a dog on start. Mike, they got day three. He was very impressive in this game. And last one, at least, they haven't signed Jesse Bates, winner Jesse Bates, that pick and his performance in the postseason can make Jesse Bates a lot of money either in Cincinnati or elsewhere. The Bengals are so much further ahead as a franchise than where I thought they would be this season. and a lot of that is just burrow being burrow, right?

There was this team of destiny element to them that if they had figured this out, that's what it would have felt like. But their defense was just better than I realized. They were just straight up better. The players were better. It is the simplest thing. And I think they deserve credit for that.

Because as much as I would like for it to be, it's not just vibes. It's not all vibes. Some of it is just like very, very, very talented football players. A couple of things let's blow through here before we finish. penalties on the last Rams drive were we, I mean, I saw actually a video that they missed a false start

on the entire Rams offensive line. Yeah. I mean, I thought it was Zach Taylor said he thought it was a well-officied game. I don't actually have, I don't think it was some huge injustice. I think Zach Taylor could watch any game, like, man, really just well-officiated game. Just kudos to the refs. Good job. Great job.

It was a well-staffed games. Thank you, did a good job. I think it was a well-commission game, love Raj. No, I think that there was probably a little bit of makeupness to the Logan Wilson holding, which followed the Jermaine Pratt holding. Once you get into makeup calls, all bets are off. Yeah, both both are certainly like could be called holding one, which is more egregious than the other.

And then the first and four one that made it a first and one, which I believe was Eli Apple was also clearly a hold. So I don't think anything there was terrible. If anything was bad, it was missed false start. And then Dee Higgins getting to facelast Jail and Ramsey was pretty bad, but also pretty funny. Always commit OPI. Best penalty in the game.

I have two questions. to, and they're basically the same question for each team before we go. Where are the Bengals ending the season next year? In the playoffs, but not on the Super Bowl. Yeah, 10-win wildcard team. I tend to agree. Yeah, a lot of cap space, really good opportunity to improve the team, but regression is going to come in some areas, that's okay.

Same question with the ramps. You're hoping for the playoffs, but there's just more cliff potential, right? Right. And by the way, it's all worth it if you win one Super Bowl. That's the value of this because it is harder for my skepticism that the Bengals, we should write them back into the Super Bowl is, look, it's just they're a young team. They have obvious holes in the roster. They have to figure out. They're in a conference with Josh Allen of Patrick Mahomes.

Right. With the Rams, there are larger legitimate problems in terms of who you. Right. Who's the coach? Who's the defense? Who's the biggest player on the team? There's big, I mean, Vaughn Miller is a free agent.

Von Miller was awesome today. Right. This stuff matters. Adam Schaftor sent one of those tweets that was like, here's who's a free agent. Yeah, so I have it up. Odell Beckham Jr., Von Miller, Darius Williams, that's Corner 2.

Sonny Michelle, Austin Corbett is a right guard. Dante Dion, Joseph Nobume. He's their left guard. And he's there O-Line 6. Matt Gay, Troy Reader. He threw Will Compton in at the end? Not sure Will Compton. I don't know if we're just like sliding.

He threw someone else in too. Yeah. No, he hit Dante Dion at the bottom. He accidentally said Dante Deakin in the top. He missed spelled his name. Will Compton, though. You and I play the same number of snaps for Will Compton this year, or for the Rams this year. Weddle, by the way, is re-retiring.

He's done. Yeah, well, he separated his back in this game. It'd be funny if he just played another 10 years after this. I got the bug. Can I just say that one of my absolute favorite football player things is when they get hurt during the game and they just come back out and watch it? Yeah. That's badass. Yeah, absolutely, man.

So, no, I agree. I think if you told me Stafford back, McVeigh back, Donald back, I would still expect playoffs, but also they're going to have a talent drain A and B, man, man, the potential for one of those retirements is really, really scary for the Rams. It could accelerate the oncoming, you know, rebuild, long-term rebuild. Yeah, much more than we expected. Can I push back on one thing? the NFC West is a real big question mark next year.

Yeah, it could be good. Tyler and Cliff, the Seahawks, just whatever their whole thing. I'm doing a gesture of whatever their whole thing is. I'm not really sure what that is. And then the Niners are going to have a new quarterback. Stafford could be the only returning quarterback in the NFC West in terms of, you expect Jimmy to be replaced for sure. Russ is definitely in some sort of conversation.

Some sort of weird thing. Russ is in some weird thing. Yeah, right. Russ is, they're doing a thing. And then Kyle was doing a thing. Kyla would like for them to be doing a thing. Kyle was trying to get them into Let's Do a Thing situation. That Chris Monson report is pretty weird today.

Yeah. Shout out Christian Kirk on Tuesday being like, oh yeah, my contract will be affected by Kyla Murray's future with the team. We're all like, Kyla Murray's what with the whom? I'm going to tell you something. If there's a standoff between Cliff and Kyler and I own the Cardinals, that lasts about half a second.

Right. But also it's a little bit of like you're both wrong. Like, Cliff, you definitely need Kyler. Kyler, you probably really need Cliff here. We should maybe reconcile this a little bit. We're dangerously close in minute 42 to you talking about short quarterback. So we're going to end the podcast. I'm just saying Matt Stafford's taller than Joe Burrow.

How will you guys remember this game? I was stressed a lot. You guys were both pretty stressed today. It just was, it was a close game. I will remember the game winning. Rams drive. I really do think that there was a lot of like some of that stress was just built up by you watch the McVeigh offense come out drive after drive and run into a brick wall in the same manner over and over again. And when that finally shifted, it felt like the turning point that

it was in the game. I think that will be the memory I hold from this. I will also remember the halftime show. I thought that was very good. And I will remember being with you all. I was going to say that. But so like how we remember this game. Yeah, no, I'll definitely remember in that fourth quarter talking with you guys, watching that Rams offense run themselves into a brick wall and thinking like, all right, if they can do X, Y and Z, maybe they'll get it. Like we talked about like, you got to go tempo and you got to like stop like doing like, oh, Daryl Henderson's our third down back. Sunny Michelle's are every other drive first down back. And like just like pick a person out group being put out there and go and let Stafford, like, call some plays and let him run it a little bit. I remember having that conversation with everybody.

and then I remember that Cooper Cup catch on that no look throw in that slant because that was such a heater from Stafford. That was like a, that was the throw we're used to seeing a quarterback cap an immortal performance with and it had not been that for Stafford for three and a half quarters. And then he hits that throw in it and it made me feel at that moment, they've got it. Like that was a throw.

I was like, this is the turn. I'll remember when Danny Hyfitz lost his Apple Watch at security. This is not necessary. And then he found it. And then I took it, and Danny Kelly and I were playing a prank on him. And when he figured out the prank, he was so mad he didn't acknowledge the prank. It was one of those things. It wasn't even like a fake laugh.

He was just stewing. You better not. That's a bad answer. This was a good game, and it deserves a memory. No, I just wanted to throw that out there because I think they're going to tell the same story on the fantasy pod. And I hope that it's like Dunckel. Kevin wanted to get his side of the story. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like Dunkirk. No, there's no side of the story. That was the one side of the story, and it was a wonderful. It was a wonderful is what they're saying on their pod. Well, Hyvin's the one who left it at freaking security. Who's looking bad in this story? This was a good game. We're doing Apple Watches at 45.

Yeah, if you're doing Apple Watches, so I'll actually get to do short quarterbacks. I believe that's true. This was the first middle of the field. This was the first in-person Super Bowl. Gotta see, got to see, got to see him. This was the first in-person Super Bowl. I'm the captain now.

And it was the first in-person Super Bowl with you guys. Love Kevin. and power through this. He's doing great. And last year sucked for everybody. It was kind of low on the list of worldwide concerns that the Super Bowl sucked, but the Super Bowl did in fact suck. And so the fact that everything was fairly normal, 80% normal,

tonight was really special. And to be with you guys, we've had such a special season. Nora, this is kind of the first in-person thing you've done with the ringer, even though you joined before last season. and Solac, you know, getting all his prop bets in. It was great. Yeah.

It was a beautiful time. It was a chaos season. Ruiz not showing up because Justin Herbert's not here. Just had a protest. It's just everybody was doing their own thing. They were doing exactly what they all wanted to do. Yeah. Yes.

So a lot of bits. It was really good stuff. It was wonderful. You guys are the best. This has been the Ringanfell Show on the Ringar Podcast Network. Kind of a normal week this week coming up. James Jones and Ryan Chase Zero will be on the Players Pod.

Nora and I will be here on Thursday. And then the draft show, popping up. You ready to talk some draft Ben Solac? Love it, absolutely. It's a really bad quarterback class and then some really interesting players on the outside of it. And so we've already had two podcasts so far

on the Ringar Fantasy Football feed. You haven't heard those. You just check out that feed. We talked to quarterback class. We talked to first overall pick. But now that show will be migrating over to this feed. We're starting with wide receivers later this week. I love it.

Who's wide out one? You're going to have to tune in and find out there. Oh, no. Now that is a professional. I won't be doing that. Thank you. Wow.