Death, taxes and tired axioms about winning Big Football Games.
Whenever two division rivals have previously met in the NFL’s postseason, storytellers dredge up one narrative in unique circumstances. If either of the two teams won both of the regular-season matchups, the implied idea is that that team simply cannot win again. TV commentators and reporters parrot it up and down. Random, cherry-picked statistics bear it out as an abject impossibility, regardless of context.
Because guess what: It’s hard to beat one team three times in one year, for some reason. No, we don’t need to explain. This is football, a Serious Game, and in football, you cannot win against a team three times in the same year.
This is the situation the Rams face against the 49ers in this Sunday’s NFC Championship Game. Los Angeles, a -3.5 favorite to advance to Super Bowl LVI at Tipico Sportsbook, lost to San Francisco in both scheduled matchups this year. The first time, a 31-10 Monday Night Football beatdown, and the second, a 27-24 overtime victory in SoFi Stadium (the site of this Sunday’s game) that let the 49ers sneak into the playoffs.
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While the score wasn’t as indicative of the play in the former, it’s also not as if the 49ers completely dominated the Rams. On that merit, those Rams, who are hitting on all cylinders now, should only be able to overcome their woes only because you do not beat a team three times in one season.
It won’t be because Matthew Stafford has found a new comfort level.
No, it’ll be that you do not beat a team three times in one season.
It won’t be because Aaron Donald, Von Miller, and Jalen Ramsey, among others, on a stacked Rams defense, will make life hell for Jimmy Garoppolo.
No, it’ll be that you do not beat a team three times in one season.
(Never mind that, technically, the Rams lost to the 49ers twice in 2021, so San Francisco doesn’t even have to worry about this hex in 2022 just yet. )
But does history bear this nugget out as anything of statistical significance? Have teams really routinely failed to sweep their division rivals once it came to a playoff battle?
In a word: No.
From 1970 to 2020—50 years of pro football to be exact—the NFL team who won both regular-season matchups is 14-8 in all playoff rematches. To be specific to this weekend more than anything, that includes three conference championship games in the NFL’s current format: The Steelers over the Ravens for the AFC in 2008, the Titans over the Jaguars for the AFC in 1999, and the Giants over Washington Football Team in 1986.
While the previous loser did eventually enjoy some measure of redemption, roughly 63 percent of these playoff battles ending in a third defeat is not a number to overlook. In most cases, the owner of the season sweep did come out on top again, owning an authentic piece of bragging rights hardware and point of pride in a hard-fought rivalry.
If it’s any consolation to the Rams, they need not worry about narratives. They’re more than capable of beating the 49ers on their own terms. You don’t reach the penultimate weekend of NFL football if you aren’t a quality team. In recent, less consequential matchups, the Saints finished a sweep of the Panthers with a Wild Card Game victory in 2017, but Tom Brady’s Buccaneers did break the Saints’ hold over them in the Divisional Round last year.
It truly isn’t that hard to beat a team three times. What would be difficult is beating a team seven straight times, which is also laid out on a platter for the 49ers as the Rams haven’t won against San Francisco since 2018.
If the Rams already fell to the 49ers twice in the last three months, who’s to say it doesn’t happen in SoFi Stadium again with higher stakes based on a hokey (and false) cliche?
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