The quarterbacks are a given. See who else is favored to walk away with the MVP award.
Odds have arrived for who will win Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl LVI between the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams (-4.5 at Tipico), and to no one’s surprise they favor the quarterbacks.
QBs have dominated the award from the beginning, when Bart Starr was MVP of the first two Super Bowls and quarterbacks won the next two, as well. In the last 15 years, eight different quarterbacks have won Super Bowl MVP, and two of them — Tom Brady and Eli Manning — have more than one.
There’s still a glimmer of hope for a couple other positions, however. Of the four non-QB MVP’s in the last 15 years, two were wide receivers and two were linebackers. Quarterbacks might be the safest bet but they aren’t exactly a lock.
Here’s a look at odds for the two passers and the players with the next-best odds to win the award and take that much-coveted trip to Disney World.
Lamb led the Cowboys in receptions and receiving yards; now he’ll fill in for the league leader in both categories in the all-star contest. | From @ToddBrock24f7
CeeDee Lamb can now officially make his plans for Las Vegas.
The Cowboys’ second-year receiver has been named to the 2022 Pro Bowl in an alternate role. Lamb will be taking the roster spot of Los Angeles Rams star Cooper Kupp, who will be otherwise occupied preparing for Super Bowl LVI.
Lamb’s nod was expected late last week, but the Cowboys traditionally do not announce which of their players have been selected as alternates for the league’s annual all-star game. USA Today did report in late December, though, that defensive end Randy Gregory was also named an alternate.
Lamb led the Cowboys’ top-ranked offense in receptions and receiving yards in 2021. Now he’ll fill in for Kupp, who led the league in both categories.
Interesting fact: the last 3 drafted Cowboys WRs to make a Pro Bowl … all wore No. 88. That’s Irvin, Dez and now CeeDee Lamb.
A promotion for someone was guaranteed, since both teams in the conference championship game featured a receiver with a Pro Bowl invite. (Deebo Samuel was so honored for the 49ers.)
The 22-year-old Oklahoma product will join an NFC receiving corps that includes Samuel, Minnesota’s Justin Jefferson, and Tampa Bay’s Mike Evans (who will be filling in for injured Green Bay superstar Davante Adams).
Five other Cowboys players got the Pro Bowl call: Micah Parsons, Trevon Diggs, Zack Martin, Tyron Smith, and Bryan Anger. The game will be played February 6 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
Cooper Kupp embraced Robert Woods after the Rams’ win over the 49ers, sharing an emotional moment on the field at SoFi Stadium
When the Los Angeles Rams made a run to the Super Bowl three years ago, they did so without Cooper Kupp. He tore his ACL late in the season and was forced to miss the rest of the year – including Super Bowl LIII.
This year, it’s Robert Woods who the Rams will be missing in the big game. Woods tore his ACL in November and he’s been out ever since. He won’t be on the field in Super Bowl LVI, which is heartbreaking for the veteran receiver.
If anyone knows what it’s like to miss a big game, it’s Kupp. He and Woods shared an emotional moment after the Rams’ 20-17 win over the 49ers in the NFC title game. It’s great to see Woods on the field celebrating with his teammates, but he would’ve loved to be out there and playing a part in the victory.
The Rams toppled the 49ers with a fourth-quarter rally to gain a Super Bowl berth
The Los Angeles Rams are going to the Super Bowl. They are going to be the road team on their home field, SoFi Stadium, on Feb. 13 but that’s all right by them.
Matt Gay kicked a 30-yard field goal to give the Rams a 20-17 victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
The Rams were down 10 entering the fourth quarter. They got a touchdown and two field goals to score 13 points and take a three-point lead.
The largest deficit to comeback in championship game history before the Rams’ rally was 9 points when the Seattle Seahawks clipped the Packers.
Gay’s field goal was the difference but the star of the game was Cooper Kupp.
The incomparable wide receiver caught 11 passes for 142 yards and two touchdowns.
Cooper Kupp has converted SIX 3rd downs into 1st downs.
Jimmy Garoppolo threw an interception while under pressure by Aaron Donald in the waning minutes. It was an ill-advised throw and wound up in the arms of Travin Howard.
The Rams are rallying and have tied the NFC Championship Game at SoFi Stadium
Another NFL playoff game this postseason appears headed to a frantic finish.
The Los Angeles Rams have scored 10 points in the fourth quarter to tie the San Francisco 49ers at 17-17 in the NFC Championship Game at SoFi Stadium on Sunday.
Down by 10, Matthew Stafford connected with Cooper Kupp for their second TD of the game to bring the Rams within three points.
Cooper Kupp put the Rams on the board first with a touchdown catch, capping off an 18-play, 97-yard drive
The Los Angeles Rams weren’t having much trouble moving the ball against the 49ers, going 10 plays and 64 yards on their second possession, but it ended in an end zone interception by Matthew Stafford. On their third drive, they strung together positive play after positive play.
They went 18 plays and 97 yards, making this their most successful drive of the entire season. And it was capped off by none other than Cooper Kupp, who caught a 16-yard touchdown pass from Matthew Stafford in the corner of the end zone.
It was a perfect throw and a great catch, with these two playmakers connecting for their 19th touchdown of the season – including the playoffs.
The first touchdown of the NFC Championship goes to @CooperKupp!
The Rams flat-out have more star power than everyone else left. It’s basic math.
Recently, the Los Angeles Rams were a perennial laughingstock, a team you never took seriously. From 2012 to 2016, otherwise known as the Jeff Fisher era, St. Louis/Los Angeles won 31 games. “7-9” was a joke that opposing fans (along with the team’s own) made about a squad that seemingly always found a way to underachieve.
Then Sean McVay came around, and the Rams made the playoffs in his first season. The following year, they lost Super Bowl LIII. They have still never finished with a losing record in the three years since, always sitting at or near the top of the NFC.
Many lauded the now 36-year-old McVay as a trendsetter when he first started. A millennial offensive mind (savant, really) with impeccable recollection for the smallest details of a football in a league that, on the whole, refused to evolve. For the most part, the NFL has still refused to evolve. But McVay has only seemed to grow into the job as he coaches one of the best rosters, on paper, in recent memory.
McVay is now at the helm of one of the NFL’s premier teams. As long as he’s coaching the Rams, that won’t change any time soon. And with Los Angeles again on the precipice of a Super Bowl, if you let his bunch into the Big Game this time, with the lessons they’ve learned, it’s hard to imagine they squander the opportunity.
Here’s why the Rams will become the second-straight team to win a Super Bowl on their home turf.
How they got here
Every good team faces adversity and overcomes it throughout their season. That’s not only a fact of pro football but with people and life.
(See, you come to read my columns, you get sage advice, too.)
But it’s hard to argue the Rams (-3.5 favorites to win the NFC Championship over the 49ers at Tipico) faced too much of any adversity in direct comparison to their counterparts. At least, when you consider how much raw talent this de facto All-Star team has.
When they lost team captain Robert Woods to an ACL tear in early November, the Rams still had Cooper Kupp, Van Jefferson, and Odell Beckham Jr.
When they already had a devastating pass rush led by Aaron Donald and former lead running mate Leonard Floyd, they added former Super Bowl MVP Von Miller for the modest price of a few Day 2 draft picks. Given the pass rush L.A. has, it’s as if All-Pro corner Jalen Ramsey has half of his job done for him.
And, to backtrack altogether, when they had Jared Goff once running one of the league’s best offenses, they traded him for the once-maligned but extremely gifted Matthew Stafford.
Ignore the poorly-worded tweet giving sole credit to Kupp: The Rams don’t survive a defending champion, Tom Brady-lead team if not for Stafford. If not for Stafford, they don’t look like a star-studded juggernaut with the arguable best football player alive on their defensive side (Donald).
Everyone else is only in a position for Super Bowl glory because of him.
How they’ll win the Super Bowl
It’s difficult to pinpoint the best thing the Rams do as a team because they do everything well. This is no one-trick pony. This is a team that probably should’ve comfortably finished with the No. 1 seed in the NFC, rather than have to play a Wild Card Game.
This year, the loaded Rams were (takes a deep breath):
Ninth in total offense and eighth in scoring (27.1 points a game)
Fifth in passing offense and eighth in Football Outsiders’ offensive DVOA efficiency metric
Fifth in that same DVOA metric, but on defense
10th in takeaways (25)
25th in sacks allowed (just 31) and third in sacks (50)
Most of the time, if you’re in the top 10 when it comes to efficiency on both sides of the ball, it’s the most straightforward predictor of a championship. It’s pretty rare to see any team without a top-10 unit on either side win a title. Even then, they’re still stellar in another specific aspect on that unit (see Chiefs, Kansas City, 2019, and a pass rush).
McVay’s Rams not only create big plays and protect the passer, they also harass the other quarterback and rarely make backbreaking mistakes. If I were a 49ers, Chiefs, or Bengals coach and/or player set to face the Rams on either of the final two weekends of the NFL season, I’d put my feelings in the words of Mr. Randy Savage:
It would unjustifiably be a position I’d rather not be in.
Why they won’t
Whereas the Rams are mostly sound in every phase of the game, they have one tiny, itsy-bitsy bugaboo that might prove to be an Achilles heel.
They’re in the holiday spirit of giving year-round. How kind. How generous. We should all aspire to random acts of kindness, not only giving the football away.
Matthew Stafford’s Rams (and I word it this way for a reason) were tied for seventh in the NFL in giveaways with 23. The gifted Stafford himself, who, yes, did add an element of explosiveness to L.A.’s offense, was responsible for 19 (!) of those turnovers with 17 interceptions and two fumbles.
When Stafford felt particularly generous, his turnovers (the way they often do) not only came at the worst moments but in bunches. Nobody can explode and be a hero and also implode the way this former Detroit Lion does.
Two picks, including a pick-six, against the Titans in a Sunday Night Football game.
Two picks, including another pick-six, against the 49ers in a Monday Night Football matchup against their NFC title opponent only a week later.
PICK-6! JIMMIE WARD'S SECOND INT.@49ers lead 14-0 in the first quarter.
I could go on, but I do fear for Stafford’s mental health. (Also, he did eventually stop throwing pick-sixes in consecutive weeks.)
So far, through two playoff games, Stafford’s trademark propensity to capitulate hasn’t yet cropped up for the Rams. If anything, it was other respective Rams’ faults (including Kupp and Cam Akers, among others) for combining to fumble the ball four times and letting the Buccaneers almost steal a sure-fire victory.
But there will likely come a time when the Rams have to chase a lead in the NFC Championship Game against the 49ers, and if they’re fortunate, in the Super Bowl (currently +210 to win it all with Tipico) against Kansas City or Cincinnati. When you’re chasing, you’re pressing. When you’re pressing, you’re making mistakes. When you’re making mistakes, you’re going back to a quiet locker room while the other team celebrates.
If Stafford, the veteran gunslinger, isn’t careful under that pressure, he might find himself giving away the best opportunity these Rams have ever had at a championship.
Those who reside in Los Angeles have to hope they get Good Stafford instead.
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Cooper Kupp has been named the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year by the PFWA, a huge honor for the Rams WR
It’s looking like a dead heat between Cooper Kupp and and Jonathan Taylor for the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year award, which will be announced at the NFL Honors show on Feb. 10. But the first real indicator that Kupp might edge out Taylor has been revealed.
The Pro Football Writers of America voted Kupp the Offensive Player of the Year for 2021, giving it to him over Taylor. Aaron Rodgers was voted MVP and T.J. Watt won Defensive Player of the Year, which is how the voting for the Associated Press’ awards are expected to go, as well.
Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers is the PFWA's 2021 NFL Most Valuable Player. L.A. Rams WR Cooper Kupp is the Offensive Player of the Year, and Pittsburgh Steelers LB T.J. Watt is the Defensive Player of the Year.
Kupp put together a historic season with 145 catches for 1,947 yards and 16 touchdowns, leading the NFL in all three categories. He fell four catches shy of Michael Thomas’ single-season record and only 17 yards short of Calvin Johnson’s record for the most yards in one season.
Given the historical context of Kupp’s campaign, he’s a deserving pick for Offensive Player of the Year, even with the tremendous season Taylor put together.
The San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams meet for the third time this season, now with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. Here is how the 49ers beat the Rams.
And then, there were two.
NFC West rivals square off Sunday with a trip — or at least a short excursion — to Super Bowl LVI on the line. When the Los Angeles Rams kick things off against the San Francisco 49ers, it will be the third meeting this year between these two franchises.
Unfortunately for the Rams and their fans, the first two meetings did not go their way.
Back in Week 10, the 49ers won in dominant fashion, topping the Rams by a final score of 31-10. That game was perhaps notable for how the 49ers began the game, putting together an 18-play drive that covered over 11 minutes of game time, nearly the entire first quarter, that gave the 49ers an early 7-0 lead.
San Francisco followed that with a Pick-Six of Matthew Stafford on the Rams’ ensuing possession, and things were trending in their direction early.
Then in Week 18, with quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo dealing with a thumb injury and the 49ers needing a win to get into the playoffs, San Francisco pulled out a three-point win in overtime, setting the stage for their playoff run.
So how does the third meeting between these teams play out? Do the 49ers make it a perfect 3-0 against the Rams on the season, or does Los Angeles become the second-straight team to play a Super Bowl in their home stadium?
Here is what the 49ers have to do to beat the Rams.
