I fulfilled a Bucket List wish Sunday by attending my first Super Bowl. This was the perfect storm for me — the Bengals made the Super Bowl for the first time in 33 years, and it just so happened to be in Los Angeles (technically, Inglewood), approximately 45 minutes from my house. As soon as the Bengals beat the Chiefs in the AFC championship, I started in earnest looking for tickets (I had done some cursory looking around before the game, just to get an idea of what I was getting into). When the Niners went up on the Rams early in the third quarter of the NFC championship, I got an itchy trigger-finger and paid for two tickets online. My thought was the Niners, whose fans traveled in droves to L.A. both in Week 18 and for the NFC championship, would drive up the ticket prices more than Rams fans. Of course, the Rams rallied to win, so that factor wasn't present. Prices eventually fell, and so I probably cost myself by not waiting. Rookie mistake.
SoFi Stadium is a monstrous facility, with a ponderous $5 billion price tag. But it's really an impressive stadium, with really good sight lines even at the upper levels (where we sat), easy movement in the concourses and shockingly easy ability to enter and exit the stadium, if not the surrounding area. Among the many breaks I caught was that my wife generously volunteered to take my daughter Erin and I to and from the game, so we didn't have to deal with the expense and hassle of parking.
But my primary reaction to the whole experience was one of sensory overload. It's true of many live sporting events, and to be honest, probably many live events of all stripes. That's probably always been the case, but maybe I'm channeling my age more these days. But it's especially an assault on one's eardrums. My ears were still buzzing the next day — I might have had some difficulty maintaining my focus during Monday's SiriusXM Fantasy show (insert your own joke about my attention span here!). The stadium has a 260-speaker audio system, which compliments its massive Infinity Screen. Sitting up in the 500s, we had a pretty good view of that screen:
In addition to the audio and visual overload, the game provided an olfactory nerves overload, from the various food items, sure, but more from the second-hand pot aroma (I never really saw any smoke) that was omnipresent at the game. I guarantee you that Snoop wasn't alone in lighting up before his performance! I don't want to make this a "think about the children" post, but yeah, I thought about my daughter being with me at the game whenever the next wave wafted over us.
We arrived outside the stadium about 2.5 hours before the game. Erin and I first hung out in one of the designated "Bengals" pre-party areas (I counted at least two on opposite sides of the stadium), and I wish we would have spent a little more time taking in the sites outside — perhaps even done a full lap around the stadium, as I hadn't been there before. After plunking down for some merchandise at one of the outdoor stands (but inside the gates where you had to show your tickets), we made it into the stadium with a lot less hassle than I expected. I mean no judgment by this, but when we bought the tickets, it came with a warning that we had to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a recent negative test. We had our vax cards and photos of said cards just in case something happened to them, but ... we were never asked to show them, despite having to show our game tickets at two spots. All of the employees were masked, but I'd venture only five percent of the spectators were.
We were going to find a shirt for my daughter inside the stadium, as the two booths that we checked outside didn't have anything remotely close to her size that also met her tastes. Alas, the lines to get into the merchandise stores on the inside were ludicrous. Instead, we made it to our seats, still more than 90 minutes before the game. From there, the time flew by. First, we met up with Dan Clasgens, host of Fantistics Insider on SiriusXM Fantasy, among the many hats he wears.
I'm totally jealous of his Anthony Muñoz jersey!
After getting food and drinks and heading back up to our seats, it was time for the entrance of the players and for me to share some poorly filmed videos of The Rock hyping up the start of the game! Next thing you know, suddenly it was game-time!
(Bengals entering)
(Rock Hype 1)
(Rock Hype 2)
As for the game itself, well, you know the story. It didn't end as I had hoped, but more how I feared. At first, it really looked like it was going to be a blowout. The Rams couldn't run the ball, but they were torching Eli Apple on the regular, especially whenever they rolled Matthew Stafford out after play-action. The worst was Cooper Kupp's first touchdown, where Apple bit all the way through the core of the poisoned apple.
But then again, as much as this game threatened to be a blowout, so did the AFC championship against the Chiefs. Getting the first touchdown on what I'm calling "The Jim Coventry Play" was massive. One of Jim's favorite prop bets going into the game was the over on 2.5 players attempting a pass — i.e., someone other than Stafford or Joe Burrow throwing a pass. I thought it was a good bet, but it was more likely to come from the Rams, who had employed more trick plays throughout the season. Joe Mixon's touchdown pass was his first pass attempt of the season, and only the second on the team from a non-quarterback (Tyler Boyd had the other).
I enjoyed the halftime show immensely, both in the performance itself as well as watching the logistics of the set-up and takedown afterward. You really get a good appreciation of how much work goes into the show by being there, and seeing the sheer number of support involved. My only complaints were that the main stage was facing the other side of the field (though the video screens addressed most of that issue), and that the sound was so loud that it seemed to distort the quality of the music and the lyrics. Maybe that's where you should insert an old-man comment. Anyhow, I'm told that the volume was appropriate for television, so perhaps it was optimized for that to the expense of those there in person.
Two looks at the set-up for the halftime show:
and
I really enjoyed the first five minutes of the third quarter show, however. I didn't realize until after the game how much Tee Higgins got away with a face mask on the touchdown to start the second half. But even without knowing that, later I didn't want to blame the loss on the refs, even though two key calls went against the Bengals, and arguably a third. Not getting a touchdown after Chidobe Awuzie's third quarter interception proved costly, as the Bengals' offense went into a complete shell after that. Here's a photo of the aftermath following Higgins' third-quarter touchdown:
The story lines from this game are pretty obvious. The Rams pass rush got home, repeatedly, in the second half after the long Burrow-to-Higgins second touchdown. Cooper Kupp did his thing, albeit at a lesser volume than usual, but came up huge in the key moments. The 3rd-and-goal defensive holding call against Logan Wilson was indeed brutal, especially in comparison to how the rest of the game had been called. But ... the Bengals still had the ball 2nd-and-1 at the Rams' 49-yard line, with two timeouts and plenty of time left to play. I can't blame this game on the refs.
Here are a few other key plays that drew less attention, yet had a big impact on the Bengals falling short.
- Samaje Perine twice getting the call on 3rd-and-1, near midfield, and twice falling short of converting the first down, with bookend Bengals drives. Arguably, if he converts either run, the game flows much differently. The first miss begat the Bengals going for it and failing on the first drive (with a tiny assist to Perine there — apparently he lined up on the wrong side of Burrow pre-snap, making the pass break-up much easier). Instead of continuing a drive or pinning the Rams deep, they gained plus field position and scored the first touchdown. And the second time, on the final drive of the game, was obvious. Zac Taylor stuck with using Perine instead of Joe Mixon on third down, much to the detriment of the team.
- The Bengals getting a penalty following Matthew Stafford's first interception, due to a non-uniformed player coming on to the field to celebrate. I can get annoyed about the refs calling it, but come on, how can you possibly think it's OK to do that in the first place? It pinned the Bengals back on the 10-yard line following the INT.
- Tyler Boyd's fourth-quarter drop. The normally sure-handed Boyd has had just five drops in the last three regular seasons, but his drop with 6:22 remaining in the game on 3rd-and-9 halted the Bengals' penultimate drive. It's debatable whether he would have gained the first down, or if the Bengals would have gone for it had he caught it but come up short. But it took those options off the table, and gave the Rams marginally better field position as a result.
- It looked to me that Kevin Huber got roughed, or at the very least, run into with his fourth-quarter punt with 11:38 remaining in the game. How was that explained on the broadcast?
- Cooper Kupp's successful end-around carry on 4th-and-1 from the Rams 30 on their final full drive. That's a pretty gutsy call to go for it in the first place — I guarantee many coaches punt there, given how well the Rams' defense was playing and that they had all three timeouts. I know as a Bengals fan, though, that I wanted them to punt! Plus, they didn't try to, ahem, ram it up the middle, which hadn't worked all game. Very smart play call, and one you usually don't see on fourth down, though the Bengals did something similar in their win over the Raiders during the first week of the playoffs with Ja'Marr Chase.
There are so many other plays to review, but let's face it, it's all been done elsewhere, probably better. I have no regrets about going — it was an incredible experience, and Erin and I still left with a smile!
