There have now been ten “neutral network, (i.e. NOT the NFC or AFC network) Super Bowls contested between NFL or NFC rooted teams and AFL or AFC rooted teams and the NFL/NFC team has prevailed in all ten.
The only other L.A. vs Cincinnati post-season entity was the Cincinnati Reds’ sweep of the Dodgers in a 1995 division series. That year was the only other year, before this one, in which the Atlanta Braves won it all.
Additionally the Rams join the Braves with 4 crowns, two in their current locale and one each in their two former cities.
The “Miracle” 1914 Boston Braves and Henry Aaron/Lou Burdette led, 1957 Milwaukee Braves won the “other cities,” previous Braves’ titles.
The 1945 Cleveland Rams and 1999 St. Louis Rams, the latter on the #, in a neutral network Supe, won the other cities, previous Rams’ crowns.
Thrice Rams’ Supes have “landed” within a point of the spread, a 1979 season, “near but not at, Rams home,” Steelers, led by the great John Stallworth, (31-19) win at the Rose Bowl vs the 11 plus point(s) underdog, Rams, the aforementioned Rams (-7) (24-17) win vs the Tennessee Titans in the 1999 season such and the game two days back in which the Rams, consensus 4 point “faves” won by 3 vs the now (0-3) in Supes, but (2-1) vs the spread, Cincinnati Bengals.
The Los Angeles Rams won their first L.A. title in 70 years, riding the brilliance of receiver Cooper Kupp (Michael COOPER played on 5 L.A. Lakers’ title teams and coached 2 WNBA title teams with the Sparks) and penalty calls to (-4) (23-20) the Cincinnati Bengals in the 56th Supe, played on the Rams’ home, corporate named field.
It was the second straight season a team won the title playing on its home field. There had not been a home game in the first 54 such games.
L.A. trailed (20-16) (the same score by which SF handed Cincy a second Supe loss in ’88 when down 3, Montana to Taylor yielded a 4 point Cincy Supe loss. The Bengals (0-3) in Supes have lost by 5 then 4 and now by 3, having lived by “the sword of winning by 3 in their first 3 ‘offs tilts- now cue Diana Ross “Touch Me In The Morning” we have seen them lose by 3. The Rams in turn, just (2-2) ATS in these title winning ‘offs, win a third straight by 3, this the first of the combined 6 Rams or Bengals “by 3” ‘offs wins not decided by a field goal) with say 7 minutes remaining.
The Rams went 79 yards for the game winning score, however, making a holding call that essentially decided the season followed by “prisoner of the moment” Collinsworth calling a mediocre Stafford (he did throw 3 touchdown passes) and great Kupp (the also great Aaron Donald ought to have been game MVP, McVay is no bargain, neither team will be close next year and maybe again) a “greatest” clutch “combo” leaves me so disgusted.
A great player and if the ridiculous rule that the MVP vote takes place before the last 2 minutes, the likely Supe MVP, Aaron Donald pictured above.
He wears #99 and the Rams last won the Supe in ’99 when they were in St. Louis.
An Aaron is a star on the title team in the football season after Henry Aaron’s old team, the Braves won it all, in the first season after Mr. Aaron’s death.
As is the case with the Braves and no other major North American professional sports team, the Rams not only have titles in 3 different cities but also 2 in their current locale and one each in their other 2 cities.
Dub Jones, a great player on all 3 Paul Brown coached Cleveland Browns’ teams that clashed with the Los Angeles Rams in the 1950, 1951 and 1955 “all the way,” (decades before Supes), NFL Title Games, is still alive and 98 years old on this day, Mr. Brown’s son Mike, the Cincinnati Bengals’ team owner and the Bengals face the Rams for a fourth time, with the NFL crown at stake.
Mr. William “Dub” Jones, (by the way the Browns had a player named “Special Delivery” Jones, evoking memories of the same name/professional wrestler, who “performed” about 30 years after,) was a standout player for the Browns from (1948-1955), thus playing on all 3 Browns’ NFL title winning teams under Brown and with the great Otto Graham as quarterback.
Later he was an assistant coach on the other Cleveland Browns’ NFL title team in 1964.
He shares the NFL record of 6 scoring touchdowns in a game and is the father of the one time, excellent NFL quarterback, Bert Jones.
Dub Jones, pictured above. It looks as though he wore Gary’s (Collins and not the television host) #86.
Mr. Jones was born 2 days shy of 40 years before Gary gathered in 3 Frank Ryan touchdown passes in the 1964 NFL Title Game. That was the last time the Browns won the crown.
Oh the difference in my interest in that game and the one to be played today!!
I want to note on this the 213th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth that with the completion of tomorrow’s 56th Super Bowl, there will be as many Super Bowls played as the number of years Mr. Lincoln lived on this earth.
It certainly is not a fact that makes me feel good. Hopefully as you involve in all that is the 56th such game, you take time to consider all that is Abraham Lincoln, including all the transcendent events, he led the country through and perhaps lean in the direction of more understanding as “original sin,” of U.S. sanctioned slavery still and likely always will haunts.
Dipping your chips, betting on your apps and caring who wins in “proper” proportion with trying to make these angst ridden days better and more equitable?!!
“Mandela,” detailing some of the life of the great Nelson Mandela, directed by John Ruiz Miranda and starring Robert Greene in a transcendent performance as Mr. Mandela, is a truly fantastic show.
One can see it at The American Theatre of Actors at 314 West 54th Street in New York City.
Seeing actual filmed historical clips, some light hearted, but with a reason, (Roy Rogers with his horse “Trigger”) combined with Greene and an extraordinary cast on stage, hits home, as to the enormity of what Mr. Mandela, his incredible wife Winnie (both Nadijah A.K. and Malika Nzinga stand out in the role) and his A.N.C. (African National Congress) cohorts endured, before an epic triumph.
There is so much more here including some incredible humor. Before citing the rest of the cast and contributors, I realized during the performance, that Nelson Mandela was arrested and Marilyn Monroe died, essentially on the same day, August 4, 1962 (Ms. Monroe died in the early hours of Sunday August 5th). Each person suffered greatly on this earth, Monroe in a singular effort to pursue and Mr. Mandela in a seminal, transcendent effort to secure basic human rights for Black people in South Africa. Certainly Monroe’s strife garnered exponentially more coverage, when clearly it ought to have been the opposite and I mean no disrespect to Marilyn Monroe.
Thaddeus Birkett, Yohance Allenye, Jimmy Garrett, Lamine Thiam, John Shorti, Clark Pena, Albin Weidenbladh, Keith Wright, Ben Butler, Tyler McCall, Arlene McGriff, and Lufefe Kente are the members of the tremendous cast.
Robert Greene, pictured above as Nelson Mandela in “Mandela,” written by John Ruiz Miranda and Yolanda Brooks.
Click below for more information and how to purchase tickets to “Mandela,” a truly amazing show.
This will be the twelfth “neutral network” telecast Super Bowl (’84,’87,’90,’94, ’99,’02,’05,’08,’11,’14,’17), all but the first one with Al Michaels, likely on his last Sunday, in “hometown with a home team in the Supe,” Los Angeles.
It will mark the tenth time a team with NFL roots is facing a team with either AFL or AFC roots in a neutral network Super Bowl.
The team with NFL roots has won the previous nine, clear NFL/NFC over AFL/AFC results in ’84,’87,’90, ’94,’99, ’11 and ’17. Add the NFC “roots” (they started in ’76) Tampa Bay BUccaneers’ win vs the Raiders in ’02.
Pittsburgh (Steelers) while an AFC team, began as an NFL team and won a Supe in ’05 vs Seattle Seahawks, a team with AFC roots (as with Tampa Bay, oh 7 time winner, Mr. Brady-do not “waffle” regarding retirement please, say never and end an all-time career), so that is nine.
Pittsburgh also won (no covered) vs NFL “roots team,” Arizona Cardinals in ’08 while “AFL roots,” New England took aforementioned Seattle, in the ’14 neutral network game with Mal Butler making THE BIG PLAY!
In the most recent “neutral network” Supe, the still great, but mistake prone, “most of Brady’s career coach,” Bill Belichick kept Butler out of the game, a big reason, Nick Foles and the NFL “roots” Eagles “Philly’d (with a Philly play), Belichick and Brady’s Patriots.
So the NFC is (8-3), two of the losses to NFL roots, Pittsburgh and the other a loss by AFC “roots” Seattle.
I start with football and the fact that the Bengals, though more than respectable in both losses, are (0-2) in previous Super Bowls.
Unofficially, however likely, this is the sixth time a team has gained Super Bowl entry with an (0-2) record in previous such games.
Two teams, the first of 6 New England title teams and of 7 (this past week retiring Tom Brady, a true great, told you he would retire before any reports and I tell him get away from Jim Gray) Brady title teams in ’01 and the ’17 Eagles vs Brady, who played great that game won to get to (1-2) in Supes.
Three teams lost to fall to (0-3), the ’74 Vikings, the ’87 Broncos and ’92 Bills. All three eventually fell to (0-4) with the Bills and Vikings still with that (0-4) in Super Bowls mark.
Additionally the three teams to fall to (0-3) in Supes all lost its 3rd Supe the next year after losing its second.
Thus it would seem a good time to note that 2 seasons ago, the Bengals got the first draft pick, yielding Joe Burrow (I think Joes are (6-1) in previous Supes at the quarterback position/”station” having won the first 6, Namath in ’68, Montana in ’81,’84,’88 and ’89 with ’81 and ’88 in a “no cover,” coming vs the Bengals. Joe Theesman, his name changed to Theismann as a Heisman hype (it rhymes with Heisman), won in ’82 before losing in ’83). Last season Burrow played some but was hurt. Cincy was in some circles a 100 to 1 shot to win the Supe, in which as a genuine road team at L.A. vs the Rams, they are now less than a 2 to 1 underdog.
Somewhat incredibly, perhaps, no team suffered defeats in as many as 2 of their first NFL “all the way” Championship Games, a final round entity for 33 seasons, beginning in 1933 and going through 1965.
For the record in AFL annals, the Chargers at (0-2) in such tilts, won in their third in a “3” year, routing the Patriots of Boston led by Keith Lincoln.
Perhaps I will delve into similar history regarding (0-2) and beyond teams in the other 3 major North American sports leagues.
In fact, here, unofficially, please write in with comments and I clearly allow the possibility of factual error, something unlike so many who get paid big bucks do not, I care so much about avoiding.
Again the Bills and Vikings are (0-4) in final round/Supe play. The Bengals and Panthers as cited in a past post are (0-2).
In baseball, three teams are currently (0-2), none worse in final round entities/the once great World Series, so and too often won by wild card teams. Those teams are the San Diego Padres, Texas Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays, with the Rangers 2011 World Series loss to the Cardinals’ 11th crown, an excruciating one for them.
The NBA currently has an (0-3) in final round play team, the Phoenix Suns while 3 teams the Utah Jazz, Brooklyn Nets and Orlando Magic are (0-2).
NHL yields an (0-3) in final round play team, the Vancouver Canucks and an (0-2) team, the Buffalo Sabres.
The late Carl Monroe opened the scoring in the first “neutral network” Supe, a 49ers near home rout of the Miami Dolphins, as their great secondary stymied Miami’s second year, record breaking quarterback, Dan Marino.
So many said Marino would get another Supe shot. He never did!
Burrow, as cited in his second year, first full one, already having won it all in college, something Marino also never accomplished, ought to be aware.
While the upcoming 56th Supe, (the first not only was not called the Super Bowl, but had only two thirds capacity attendance, also in L.A.) marks the first Rams/Bengals post-season action and just the second playoff entity contested between teams from Cincinnati and Los Angeles, there is great history involved in Rams vs Paul Brown/Ohio teams in NFL Championship Game annals.
First of all Paul Brown the legendary coach and founder of the Cleveland Browns for whom the team was/is named, was/is the father of current Bengals’ owner, now 86 year old Mike Brown. Paul Brown was the first Bengals coach, after much but especially a dispute with then Browns’ co owner, Art Modell, caused his departure from the team which enjoyed sustained excellence, and at times utter greatness with Paul Brown from (1946-1962).
Mr. Modell eventually moved the Browns from Cleveland to Baltimore where they are known as the Ravens. E.A. Poe could have done much with the treachery involved in big business, teams moving, lack of loyalty and utter greed which could have an NFL picture next to it.
However, the less exposed NFL and in these cases, barely exposed league is rich in history. That sustains me through the other.
Those Paul Brown founded Cleveland Browns (son Mike was 10 or 11 when the team started play in the long defunct All American Football Conference in 1946) made its league’s title game in their first 10 seasons, all with Brown as coach and the great “Automatic” Otto Graham at the quarterback helm/station (alas I made up quarterback station and in a rare nod by me to the military, Mr. Graham later became the head football coach at the Coast Guard Academy).
The first four seasons were as members of the aforementioned AAFC.
Cleveland did not slow down, far from it, appearing in the NFL Championship Game in their first 6 seasons and 7 of 8, the 7th in Jim Brown’s first season in 1957.
Thrice (1950, the Browns’ first NFL season, 1951 and 1955) it was the Browns vs the Rams for the NFL crown. Ten days hence it will be the Rams vs a Brown/Ohio team in a 4th game with the NFL title at stake.
Cleveland won the 1950 game at home and the ’55 last ever Otto Graham game in L.A. The Rams only L.A. title came 70 years ago in a (24-17) win vs the Browns in the 1951 NFL Championship Game. There is much more and I will detail some of it during the seemingly endless wait for the 56th Supe to commence.
In a typical AndyBsports.com “esoteric stretch,” 19FIFTY SIX was the only year from (1945-1957) that neither the Browns or Rams made a title tilt. The Rams won it all as the Cleveland Rams in 1945 and also played and lost a home title tilt to a repeat champion Philadelphia Eagles team led by Steve Van Buren in 1949.
Left to right, two Football immortals, Otto Graham and Paul Brown.
I eschew more title tilt game details, not a foolish “ESCHEW” (no “God bless you,” for Reid, now (3-6) in title tilts with one Supe win) as Reid committed at “first half end,” in his Chiefs HOME LOSS (a 4th in title tilt, annals for Reid) for some Supe notes.
Twenty of the NFL’s (Jim Brown/O.J. Simpson)/32 teams, including the 4 point favorite Rams, have won Supes, while 12, including the Bengals have not.
Eleven, a seemingly powerful number is the number of Supes after the “by definition,” first one, matching two teams with no previous Super Bowl wins. (The last was the ’99 “Alfalfa” Michaels Rams on the # win vs Tennessee (Titans).
If Cincy prevails on February 13th in the second straight home team Supe, after all 54 previous were not such, only 11 teams will be without a Supe win.
Four teams the Detroit Lions (0 for 56, Mr. DiMaggio was 56 for 56 and only once did Detroit reach a “semi” in those 56 seasons), Cleveland Browns (the NFL says use the Otto Graham/Jim Brown/ say Bernie Kosar team records) thus they are (0 for 53, failing in 5 games in which victory would have gained them Super Bowl entry. Those were NFL title tilt losses vs Baltimore in ’68 and at Minnesota in ’69. Add on 3 losses vs the Denver Broncos in AFC title tilts, at home in ’86 and at Denver in both ’87 and ’89. None of the 5 teams to top the Browns in those games won the subsequent Super Bowl game), Jacksonville Jaguars (0 for 27 seasons, with 3 semis losses two at New England, each vs an excellent ,”Willie Boy” coach. (Bill Parcells’ Pats in ’96 and Bill Belichick’s Pats in ’17 won home AFC title games vs “Jax,” before losing the subsequent Supe) and a home loss vs Tennessee, who also lost the next game Supe in ’99) and the Houston Texans, (never as far as a “semi” in their 20 seasons.
The seven teams, other than the Bengals (0-2) in Supes (a fact that will be not only jammed down our collective throats, but will involve references to Cris Collinsworth, a beyond annoying/”never shuts up commentator,” who was a very good football player), that have been in but never won the so called “Big Game,” are the Bills and Vikings each (0-4) in Supes, the Falcons and Panthers each (0-2) in such games and the Cardinals, Chargers and Titans, each of whom lost in their lone Supe appearance. (All three (0-1) in Supes teams lost its Super Bowl game, in an Al “Alfalfa” Michaels broadcast.
Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, pictured above.
Andy B Sports 