Super Bowl 2022: Rams Beat Bengals to Win First Championship Since 2000

By Brian Jones

Super Bowl LVI has come to an end, and the Los Angeles Rams are world champions. In a thrilling game that went down to the wire, the Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20. This is the second Super Bowl title for the Rams as they also won the Super Bowl in 2000 when they were in St. Louis. 

The Bengals played in their first Super Bowl since the 1988 season. After finishing the 2019 season with a 2-14 record, the Bengals build their team with top draft picks and posted a 10-7 season in 2021. Cincinnati won the AFC North and defeated the Las Vegas Raiders, Tennessee Titans and the Kansas City Chiefs to face the Rams in the Super Bowl. 

"I mean, you saw the 30,000 that were in the Jungle to sit and to give us a sendoff," Bengals tight end C.J. Uzomah said days before the game, per the team's official website. "That was incredible. It was freezing cold. I was out there for like 15, 20 minutes. I was freezing They were out there for a couple of hours. I was stuck in traffic for like an hour and 15 minutes and I live 10 minutes away from the stadium. That gives us a lot of juice. We're happy that they have that." 

The Rams played in their second Super Bowl in four years. Before the 2021 season began, Los Angeles acquired Matthew Stafford from the Detroit Lions via trade.  And during the season, the Rams added edge rusher Von Miller and wide receiver Odell Beckham, and all three, along with wide receiver Cooper Kupp, cornerback Jalen Ramsey and defensive lineman Aaron Donald helped the Rams post a 12-5 record. The team won the NFC West and took down the Arizona Cardinals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the San Francisco 49ers in the playoffs to reach the Super Bowl. 

"Take advantage of the opportunity, and I'm here to tell you, opportunities like this don't present themselves all the time," Miller said during a video conference with reporters earlier in the month, per the Rams' official website. "That's the message that I've been giving to my teammates. All of the speeches that DeMarcus Ware and Peyton Manning gave me in 2015, and all the stuff that Aqib Talib and Emmanuel Sanders and Demaryius Thomas (said), and all the speeches that we had in the locker room, and all the things that we talked about, I pay it forward to these guys.  

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