When you think of a classic Super Bowl matchup, you think of two teams that have dominated their competition and run rampant through the playoffs. Rams vs. Bengals is not that matchup.
Both teams trailed in their respective conference championship games as the fourth quarter started. The Bengals needed a dramatic comeback and a spectacular self-destruction from the Chiefs to advance. The Rams blew a 24-point lead in the divisional round against the Bucs and needed Jaquiski Tartt to drop a gift-wrapped interception to spur their win over the 49ers.
And yet, both teams are here because their stars did star things. Cooper Kupp and Ja'Marr Chase made huge catches to set up game-winning field goals. Jessie Bates started the Titans game with an interception and sent the Chiefs' offense to the sideline for the winter by creating another. Aaron Donald finished Jimmy Garoppolo's 49ers career with a pressure to force a pick. Joe Burrow ducked through a sure sack to scramble for a critical first down. These two teams have weapons on both sides of the ball that can single-handedly decide games.
Winning this game, then, might come down to whichever team can diminish or even eliminate as many of those mismatches as possible. The Bengals, helpless for most of the first half in the AFC title game, shut down Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce and the entire Chiefs offense after the break. The Rams limited the vaunted 49ers rushing attack to 50 yards on 20 carries. We know what these teams and their stars are capable of doing. Whichever team stops more of those stars wins this game. Our breakdown begins with the guy who has carried the Rams through the postseason:
Jump to a section:
• How Cooper Kupp has taken his game to a new level
• Will the Bengals keep their plan on defense?
• Does either team have a running game edge?
• Who will Jalen Ramsey cover?
• Four similarities between these offenses
• Does Cincy have a chance vs. Aaron Donald?
• Can the Bengals' front four create pressure?
• The biggest weakness for each team
• You might be surprised by the special-teams battle
• Why game management could be an issue
• What Super Bowl III has to do with this matchup
• Final score prediction
Cooper Kupp and the choice concept
The Bengals making it to the Super Bowl is the most surprising thing that happened during the 2021 NFL season. Kupp turning into the league's most productive receiver by a considerable margin isn't far behind. After averaging 1,124 receiving yards and eight touchdowns per 17 games across his first four seasons in the league, Kupp racked up 1,947 receiving yards and 16 touchdowns during a dominant regular season. He has added 386 yards and four more scores during the postseason, including back-breaking catches against the Bucs and 49ers in consecutive weeks.
The arrival of Matthew Stafford has unquestionably helped spur a spectacular season from Kupp, but it's not enough to single-handedly explain his sudden breakout. We also have to credit the concept in which Stafford and Kupp have formed a preternatural bond. The Rams are destroying defenses by spamming what's known as a choice route or concept. The battle to create and deny space for the Rams' star wide receiver is going to play a huge role in determining what Los Angeles does on offense Sunday.
The choice concept itself is nothing new. Run-and-shoot offenses implemented it as an option for wide receivers who were isolated against defenders in coverage one-on-one. With teams selling out to stop the flood of receivers on the other side of the field, coaches gave that isolated receiver the ability to adjust his route. If he was being shaded with inside leverage, the receiver would break outside. Outside leverage from the defender would produce an in-breaking route. Tight coverage would encourage the receiver to run a go route downfield. You get the idea: Take what the coverage gives you and run your route somewhere they can't stop.
Over the years, plenty of NFL offenses have implemented the general idea of choice routes and concepts into their attacks. Plenty of slot receivers have run routes with "two-way gos," where they can break inside or outside depending on the leverage of the covering defender. The Chiefs, who often have Kelce isolated as the backside receiver in their famous 3x1 offensive sets, give their star tight end the freedom to run his option routes into space, trusting that Patrick Mahomes will be able to improvise on the same wavelength. (For more examples, check out detailed looks from Ted Nguyen and Doug Farrar.)
Where Kupp and this Rams offense excel, though, is in the sheer volume and dexterity of the choice concepts they run. He's incredible at reading both the leverage of the defender covering him and of the broader defensive concept being used around that defender. He is able to make those decisions reliably at an extremely high speed and then has the acceleration out of his break to get into catch opportunities before defenses can react. Stafford's anticipation and arm strength have made this an absolutely deadly combination. When they're on the same page, Stafford and Kupp make these choice concepts look unstoppable.
The Rams also go out of their way to stack Kupp behind one of their other wideouts, preventing opposing teams from jamming him and creating a runway for him to see how defenses declare their coverage to the first receiver before making his move. Against the 49ers, his second touchdown catch of the day and the third-down catch he made to set up the winning field goal both came on choice concepts out of stacked or bunched sets.
Kupp's versatility also allows him to play every spot in the offense. In addition to working outside or in the slot, the Rams also use heavy doses of him coming in motion behind Stafford and line him up for choice routes out of the backfield. After Christian McCaffrey and Alvin Kamara have had so much success torching linebackers with the choice concept in recent years, teams have begun moving their star wide receivers into those spots to get matched up against slower defenders. I would expect the Rams to do just that with Kupp at least once or twice on Sunday.
The Rams also create plenty of opportunities for their other receivers off the threat of those choice routes. Linebackers and slot corners will often find themselves cheating a step or two toward Kupp to try to close off his options, which opens up easy completions in the space they've vacated. The Rams will often leak their running backs and tight ends into the space behind him to create those safe completions and checkdowns for Stafford.
Of course, Kupp isn't just thriving on those routes. His two biggest plays against the Buccaneers came on vertical routes, as he took a Stafford bomb to the house for a 75-yard score before running past Antoine Winfield for a 44-yard completion during the final drive. The 20-yard catch he made before that 44-yarder was one of the best plays you'll see a wideout make, with Kupp breaking a corner's ankles to get outside and eluding a tackle to make it out of bounds and stop the clock. The Rams also love using him on bubble and tunnel screens, but that's a place where the Bengals excel, as they held wide receiver screens to just 47 yards across 17 attempts this season.
How will the Bengals try to suffocate Kupp's space and take away the threat of those choice routes? One way is to have a good slot corner. Mike Hilton's numbers dropped a bit after an excellent 2020 season with the Steelers, but he is smart, reliable and a sure tackler. Teams targeting Hilton, 27, in the postseason have gone 9-of-15 for 95 yards, and Hilton added an interception off Ryan Tannehill on a screen during the divisional round. More than 58% of Kupp's routes came out of the slot this season, and that number is even higher if we focus on choice concepts. Hilton will need to be competitive against him.
Another way to eliminate space, as we saw from the Bengals during the AFC Championship Game, is to simply add more bodies to the equation. The tactic that helped Cincinnati turn around things and stifle the Chiefs could reappear this weekend.
Will the Bengals drop eight into coverage?
Desperate for answers to stop the Chiefs, the Bengals and defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo found one that might have been both simple and surprising at the same time. While the Bengals rarely blitzed in the game and sent four rushers after Mahomes for most of the first half, they went to an unorthodox solution more frequently after halftime. They sent only three defenders to rush Mahomes -- and it helped save their season.
As I wrote about after the game last week, the Bengals sent a three-man rush after Mahomes 15 times, 10 times in the second half. Mahomes saw an average of just 2.4 three-man rushes all season before the loss. Those 15 snaps produced a total of 38 net yards for the Chiefs.
While I don't think Anarumo's plan was to use as heavy of a dose of eight-man coverages as we saw in the AFC title game, the three-man rushes were nothing new for Cincinnati. It dropped eight players into coverage 70 times this season, more than any other defense in football. It allowed a QBR of just 27.3 on those snaps, with opposing quarterbacks averaging 6.6 yards per attempt.
Removing that fourth pass-rusher afforded the Bengals different sorts of opportunities in pass coverage. That fourth defender often served to spy Mahomes, who had picked apart the Bills in the divisional round with scrambles. Anarumo would drop off one of his edge rushers into throwing lanes, which helped create incompletions and even the interception by B.J. Hill, which came when Trey Hendrickson was in a throwing lane on an RPO. When Kelce was aligned close enough to those edge rushers, they also got an opportunity to hit Kelce at the beginning of the route, breaking up his rhythm and slowing his path downfield.
The Bengals played a variety of coverage shells behind those three-man rushes, but the goal was generally the same. After being gashed by the Chiefs on throws over the middle of the field against two-high coverages in the first half, they adapted. They played more single-high coverages on later downs in the second half and kept only a single-high safety in the middle of the field. They would often play man coverage on the five eligible receivers and have two defenders in the middle of the field as "robber" or "rat" defenders, whose goals are to disrupt and take away crossing routes. The Chiefs continued to look for those opportunities in the second half, but the throwing lanes weren't there, and the Bengals used the extra defenders to double Hill and Kelce in key moments:
Chiefs run mesh on third-and-3. Michael Thomas (31) comes out of the huddle behind the NT and ends up 18 yards deep as the single high safety by the time the snap actually takes place. Bengals have Hill + Kelce doubled and Mahomes eventually gets sacked. pic.twitter.com/p3TdRJMiYE
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) January 31, 2022
I don't think the Bengals are going to drop eight as frequently as they did against the Chiefs -- especially given that the Rams will be more prepared for the tactic -- but it's a viable solution for trying to take away Kupp's space over the middle of the field on those choice routes. Stafford also wasn't good when teams dropped eight in 2021, as he went 22-of-34 for just 156 yards with two touchdowns and three picks. His 26.6 QBR in those situations ranked 19th in the NFL.
One other way the Bengals can win in the middle of the field is by passing off routes and re-establishing the "robber" midplay. Every team runs a version of the dagger route concept, where one receiver runs a go route through the middle of the field and another runs a dig (deep in) route behind. The go route clears out the space in the middle of the field, while the dig runs right into that newly exposed area for an explosive completion.
As my colleague Matt Bowen mentioned on Twitter, though, the Bengals had an interesting tactic to help defend the Chiefs' deeper routes while maintaining their ability to rob the middle of the field. Take the overtime interception by Vonn Bell. The play starts with Hilton in coverage on Hill, who runs a deep over route. When Hill gets to a certain depth, though, Hilton passes the coverage off to Bell, who starts the play as the robber. Bell continues to run deep with Hill, while Hilton turns around and becomes the robber.
As @MattBowen41 noted, a cool coverage look from Cincy. Mike Hilton starts the play in coverage on Tyreek Hill, but when Hill runs deep, Hilton passes the route off and swaps roles with Vonn Bell. Hilton becomes the Robber and Bell carries the vertical route for an eventual INT. pic.twitter.com/L0sSLexxgX
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) February 7, 2022
The Bengals might be better, especially on the defensive side of the ball, at adapting and morphing in-game. Their strength as a defense is working together as a unit, communicating, avoiding mental mistakes and tackling. As a unit compiled mostly through veteran free agency, Anarumo's defense is often more solid than spectacular, and its ability to make defensive adjustments might be reflected in the numbers. The Bengals ranked 17th in defensive EPA per play in the first half of games this season, with that mark improving to eighth after halftime. That could very well just be random, but the Chiefs game suggests that they were able to morph into something different as the game wore on and flummox one of the league's best offenses.
Sean McVay and the Rams, too, have been better after halftime. Los Angeles' offense ranked 14th in the league in EPA per play before the break and second afterward. Much of the offensive personnel has changed since McVay's last trip to the Super Bowl in 2018, but that was famously a game in which the offensive wizard failed to come up with a midgame adjustment. The Patriots stifled McVay's outside zone-heavy run game by loading up the line of scrimmage and playing a six-man front, and the Rams never found a solution. The league's second-best offense by DVOA produced one lone field goal in a 13-3 defeat. If the Bengals show the Rams looks they're not expecting on Sunday, McVay has to be able to adjust and counterpunch.
Will each team dare the other to run the ball?
McVay's offense has added a wider range of run concepts as the years went on. The Rams run more duo, windback and counter concepts than they did during the early days of the McVay attack, and they've built play-action opportunities off a wider range of rushing options. They needed to find those solutions to avoid being bludgeoned by those six-man fronts, but their rushing game still isn't at the same level we saw during the halcyon days of Todd Gurley's run. Owing in part to inconsistency at running back and a lack of investment along the offensive line, they have fallen from first in the league in rushing DVOA in 2018 to 12th this season.
While Cam Akers' return from a torn Achilles has been nothing short of shocking, it's difficult to argue that the Rams have seen a major boost from him coming back. Akers nearly cost the Rams their divisional-round game against the Buccaneers after fumbling twice, including once at the 1-yard line at the end of the first half and another to set up the game-tying touchdown in the fourth quarter. The Rams have generated 0.08 expected points added per play (EPA/play) with Akers off the field and been a slight negative at -0.01 EPA/play with him in the huddle. He showed nice burst on a 40-yard catch against the Cardinals but has otherwise averaged 2.8 yards per carry and 4.4 yards per target. He's also dealing with a shoulder injury, although he shouldn't be limited heading into the big game.
The Rams should have Darrell Henderson available Sunday, which would leave them with three backs to use (Henderson, Akers and former Patriots first-round pick Sony Michel). McVay has been comfortable using all three in the passing game, so a distinct down or role-based split seems unlikely. McVay was comfortable giving Akers a significant workload against the Bucs, and unless he really struggles early in the Super Bowl or re-aggravates the shoulder injury, I would expect Akers to see the majority of the running back snaps in the Super Bowl.
The other problem for the Rams is that they're missing one of their most important players in the run game. Robert Woods is widely regarded as one of the league's best blocking receivers, and his absence as a result of a torn ACL has hurt the Rams on the ground. McVay relies on his wideouts to help block and disrupt everyone from defensive backs to defensive ends, and while Kupp and Woods are both great blockers, the guys replacing Woods aren't on his level. Van Jefferson and Odell Beckham Jr. conspicuously struggled to block San Francisco's edge defenders at times during the NFC Championship Game, and they'll have a hard time against Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard.
There could be plenty of carries to go around. As you might have noticed from that third-down clip above, the Bengals were perfectly comfortable running out a front with three defensive lineman and just one linebacker against the Chiefs on third-and-3. They also generally stuck with two-high looks on first-and-10 throughout the game and were willing to stay with at least five defensive backs on the field, even when the Chiefs came out with two tight ends.
When a defense does that, they're daring the other team to run the football. While the Chiefs were successful when they did try to run, they probably should have been more aggressive handing the ball off on third down against those extremely light fronts. The Bengals might not show the Rams those same looks, but that would be one way to try to dare McVay into indulging his desire to run the ball.
At the same time, the Rams might approach the question of defending the Bengals the same way. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Raheem Morris' defense showed opposing offenses a light box (with more defenders than possible blockers) 78% of the time and started plays in two-high safety looks 76% of the time. Both marks were league highs. The Rams started playing this way after former coordinator Brandon Staley arrived before the 2020 season, and after Staley left to take over the Chargers, Morris maintained some of the broader concepts Staley implemented.
The Bengals' rushing attack looks a lot more like the one the Rams used to run before that Super Bowl. Cincinnati will generally rely on heavy doses of outside zone and split zone, which play to Joe Mixon's vision and burst as a runner. His numbers this postseason don't look fantastic -- he is averaging just 3.7 yards per carry and has generated 20 rushing yards below expectation by the NFL Next Gen Stats model -- but he has looked much better on film. The Bengals have repeatedly asked Mixon to break tackles and make up for defenders slipping through their blocking schemes.
Zac Taylor and offensive coordinator Brian Callahan have also had to battle their own instincts to protect Burrow and run the football. As Tony Romo alluded to while calling the AFC Championship Game, the Bengals changed their offensive style as the season went along. Ben Baldwin's RBSDM site tracks how frequently teams throw the ball on early downs when both teams still have at least a 20% chance of winning (to avoid blowout situations). It's a good measure of how pass-friendly each offense leans when a game script isn't dictating what they'll do.
For the first 14 weeks of the season, the Bengals threw the ball 51.1% of the time on early downs in neutral scripts, roughly about league average. Over Burrow's last three regular-season games, they upped that all the way to 57.8%, which was the third-highest mark over that span. In the postseason -- while Romo criticized them for running the ball too often on early downs against the Chiefs -- Cincinnati has thrown the ball 60.8% of the time in those situations.
In every one of those situations, the Bengals generated more EPA per play throwing the ball than they did running. Over the entire season, they have averaged 0.13 EPA per play on early downs on pass snaps and minus-0.09 EPA per play running the ball. They shouldn't abandon the run entirely, but Romo was right. Their best path to winning a Super Bowl is via throwing the football.
The Rams know that, and they have a superstar cornerback capable of covering anyone. Facing a team with two star receivers, though, what will the Rams do with him?
Who will Jalen Ramsey cover?
From the outside, it feels like the Rams have a choice to make. They're blessed with one of the league's top cornerbacks in Ramsey, who is one of the few players on the planet capable of matching up with either Ja'Marr Chase or Tee Higgins. We saw Chase annihilate the Chiefs in the regular season and hit big plays throughout the playoffs with his ability after the catch. Over the past two games, though, their leading receiver has actually been Higgins, who uses his 6-foot-4 frame to snatch balls out of positions only he can attack. With all due respect to Tyler Boyd & Co., the Bengals probably need a 100-yard game out of at least one of their stars to win the Super Bowl.
Of the two, while Chase is more capable of producing big plays in a matter of seconds with his legs, Higgins might be more likely to rack up yardage. We saw bigger receivers enjoy success against the Rams this season, with Mike Evans, DK Metcalf, A.J. Green and Michael Pittman Jr. each racking up at least 98 receiving yards in a game against Los Angeles this season. Defenses can live with Higgins picking up 15 yards on a dig much easier than they can deal with Chase taking a quick hitch 50-plus yards, like he did against the Titans.
I don't think the Rams will really make a choice between the two as they decide what to do with their star corner. The answer, assuming they don't suddenly change what they do on defense for the Super Bowl, is that Ramsey will likely get opportunities to cover both. This is not the 2018-19 Patriots, who used Stephon Gilmore to follow one receiver around the field while playing man coverage at one of the league's highest rates.
According to ESPN's automated coverage analysis, Morris' Rams played zone defense 68% of the time during the regular season, good for the second-highest rate. They've only dipped slightly during the postseason, playing zone 66.2% of the time. The Rams will play loads of quarters, Cover-6 (quarter-quarter-half) and 3 Buzz coverages throughout the game. Ramsey will man match within those coverage concepts, but despite having one of the league's top cornerbacks, L.A. runs more zone than just about any other team in the league.
Against the Buccaneers in the divisional round, we saw how it used Ramsey within those zone concepts. He basically waited for Evans to come out of the huddle and followed Tampa Bay's star wideout to whatever side of the field he was on. From there, though, the Rams played zone. If Evans' route went away from Ramsey's responsibility, he wasn't following. Evans got matched up plenty against Ramsey and eventually beat him for what was the final touchdown of Tom Brady's career.
A better example for the Bengals game might be against the Seahawks, who have a pair of star wideouts in Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. When Lockett and Metcalf were both active for their game against the Rams in Week 5, Ramsey was in coverage at times on both players. He mostly leaned toward Metcalf, against whom Ramsey played about half of Seattle's passing snaps. Metcalf beat Ramsey for a touchdown, although Ramsey broke up a pass to Lockett to create an interception.
About 30% of the time, though, Ramsey ended up lining up across from someone who wasn't Lockett or Metcalf. Most often, the Seahawks split someone like a tight end or running back outside on Ramsey's side of the field and kept Lockett and/or Metcalf in the slot or with a reduced split. In those cases, Ramsey stayed outside and stayed in coverage on the less imposing receiver.
Chase and Higgins are nominally the outside receivers while Boyd operates from the slot, but both can move around the formation. They each ran about 19% of their routes this season from the slot. Some star cornerbacks are uncomfortable traveling to the slot and aren't as effective without the sideline for help, but Ramsey was the exception during the regular season. Nearly 43% of his coverage snaps came out of the slot, per NFL Next Gen Stats.
During the playoffs, Ramsey has basically been an outside corner. He has played just 10 coverage snaps out of the slot vs. 103 outside. Part of that might have been going up against Evans, who primarily works as an outside receiver, but the Rams might just think that their best personnel package at this point involves him staying outside.
If that's the case and the Rams don't move Ramsey inside at times, the Bengals would be wise to motion Mixon or Samaje Perine out of the backfield as part of their empty packages, "waste" Ramsey on a running back and let Chase and Higgins work against lesser defenders in the secondary. I suspect the Rams would adjust and move him inside more often as the game goes on, but every drive is an opportunity for the Bengals to try to create a mismatch with one -- or both -- of their top wideouts.
The 'empty' attack and the similarities between these offenses
Talking about going empty on offense brings us to another interesting wrinkle with this matchup. Taylor, now in his third year as the Bengals' coach, was hired off McVay's staff in Los Angeles. You could argue that Taylor followed McVay's blueprint for stocking up on offensive personnel around his young quarterback as quickly as possible. And while these two offenses have diverged since Taylor left for Cincinnati, there are still some remarkable similarities in terms of what they do often.
Both offenses work out of empty. McVay and Taylor are fond of getting everyone out of the backfield and spreading defenses horizontally. Stafford threw 168 times out of empty this season, the most out of anyone in the league. Burrow? He threw 124 passes out of empty, which ranked second. They've added 21 (Stafford) and 17 (Burrow) more attempts out of empty in the postseason. It's a point of emphasis for both of these offenses.
Where they differ, as Dan Pizzuta noted, is what they do out of those empty looks. The Rams used their empty sets to stretch coverages and challenge teams vertically, especially during the first half of the regular season. Stafford averaged 8.3 yards per attempt out of empty this season, a mark that is up to 11.0 yards per attempt in the postseason. He has also thrown three touchdown passes out of empty during the playoffs.
The Bengals, on the other hand, use empty to try to create quick game opportunities for Burrow, relying on his ability to diagnose defenses and get the ball out before his line is asked to hold up too long in protection. He completed nearly 71% of his pass attempts out of empty in 2021, but even with the quick releases, he was sacked on 10.6% of those empty dropbacks. As a result, Stafford's QBR out of empty is nearly 16 points better than Burrow's.
On top of that, defending empty sets has been a problem for the Bengals. They rank 28th in QBR allowed when opposing teams have gone empty, as they've completed nearly 72% of their passes and averaged 8.2 yards per attempt. The Rams have been the 10th-best pass defense in the league when opposing offenses have worked out of empty, although they've only sacked opposing quarterbacks on 4% of those dropbacks.
Both offenses stay in 11 personnel. It's difficult to separate the chicken from the egg, but these teams have invested heavily at wide receiver, and they spend a lot of time in three-wideout sets. Even after losing Woods, the arrival of Beckham has allowed the Rams to stay in 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, three wideouts) on 84.5% of their dropbacks. That's the most in football by a considerable margin.
The Bengals come in second, as with Chase, Higgins and Boyd available, they've used 11 personnel on 76.7% of their snaps.
Both offenses are dealing with injuries to their starting tight end. If anything, these teams might be even further entrenched into that personnel grouping by virtue of what happened in the conference championship round. Bengals starting tight end C.J. Uzomah and Rams starter Tyler Higbee were forced from their respective games after suffering sprained MCLs. We know that players will do just about anything to play in the Super Bowl -- as we infamously saw from Thomas Davis in Super Bowl 50 -- but it's unclear whether either tight end will be able to play Sunday.
Neither team would be thrilled about their alternatives. The Rams would start Kendall Blanton, a 26-year-old undrafted free agent who has 221 career NFL offensive snaps, 61 of which came against the 49ers. If they need a second tight end, they would be forced to turn to 2020 fourth-rounder Brycen Hopkins, who has played 73 offensive snaps in two seasons. The Rams only used Hopkins for one offensive snap last week, so if Higbee can't play, they probably won't be going to two tight end looks much.
The Bengals can at least call on a highly drafted replacement in 2019 second-round pick Drew Sample. He isn't as effective as Uzomah as a receiver, though, and Sample is not as much of a blocker as the Bengals hoped he would become when they drafted him ahead of wide receivers such as DK Metcalf and Diontae Johnson in 2019.
Cincinnati spends a lot of time in 11 personnel, but it likes to bring a sixth offensive lineman on the field (usually rookie second-rounder Jackson Carman), stack two tight ends alongside him in a YY wing look and run the football. If the Bengals want to bring two tight ends on the field without Uzomah, they will be using Sample and 2020 undrafted free agent Mitchell Wilcox, who has 84 career offensive snaps. Most of them came when the Bengals sat their starters against the Browns in Week 18.
More than losing these individual players, the absence of the tight ends limits offensive flexibility, creates opportunities for defenses to take advantage of limited players and allows Anarumo and Morris to stay in more comfortable personnel groupings. Neither the Bengals nor the Rams want to put a third linebacker on the field. The 49ers forced the Rams to match groupings with Kyle Juszczyk and George Kittle by either bringing a third linebacker onto the field or dealing with a physical mismatch out of their nickel package. Neither team is likely to gain those sorts of personnel or schematic advantages on offense come Sunday.
Both offenses have shredded blitzes. It's good for the Bengals that they blitz at one of the lowest rates in football, because sending extra rushers at Stafford has been a terrible idea. He has posted the best QBR in football against the blitz this season, as he completed nearly 70% of his passes, averaged 8.3 yards per attempt and generated a 92.3 QBR. In the postseason, he has gone 21-of-28 for 328 yards and two touchdowns against the blitz.
Burrow isn't far behind. His 83.7 QBR against the blitz was the third-best mark this season, as he went 75-of-110 for 1,117 yards with 10 touchdowns and four picks. He has followed up by going 12-of-15 for 185 yards against the blitz in the postseason. It would seem like sending extra rushers at a struggling line would help -- and there have been times where opposing defenses have created free rushers against the Bengals -- but Burrow's excellent pocket movement and ability to scramble away from pressure has made him an instant threat against blitzes.
If both of these teams keep their blitz packages under lock and key for the Super Bowl, the Rams would likely benefit. The Bengals made significant additions to their defensive line this season, but while they're 11th in pressure rate without blitzing, their coverage unit ranks 22nd in QBR allowed with seven or more defenders.
Morris' defense, meanwhile, was the third-best team at generating pressure without blitzing. It ranked seventh in QBR allowed with seven or more men in coverage. The Rams will occasionally line up with five-man fronts or send five after the quarterback, especially against mobile ones, but they're built to win one-on-ones without sending extra defenders. And with the utmost respect to Von Miller and Leonard Floyd on the edge, there's a guy in the middle who represents the biggest mismatch at any position in this game.
How can the Bengals block Aaron Donald?
In Donald, the Rams have the best defensive player in football, if not the best player in the league. In what was a quiet year by the future Hall of Famer's standards, he had 12.5 sacks and 25 knockdowns. He posted a 26.2% pass rush win rate as an interior rusher; there were only two other qualifying defenders in the league to post a pass rush win rate over 15%, and neither Chris Jones (20.8%) nor Javon Hargrave (19.2%) was particularly close to Donald. He's up to 28.9% during the postseason. He is one of one.
The Rams will move Donald around the defensive formation to create different pass-rushing opportunities. In addition to lining up on either side of the center as an interior rusher, they will take advantage of his athleticism by lining him up outside tackles as an edge rusher, where he can either rush around the tackle or build up a head of steam before coming around on twists and stunts against those interior blockers.
The list of players the Bengals will line up to block Donald isn't imposing. They are competent on the left side with tackle Jonah Williams and guard Quinton Spain. Williams, a 2019 first-round pick, allowed 6.5 sacks in his first injury-free season as a starter. He is the least likely of the bunch to see Donald on Sunday, if only because the Rams will have easier options to target.
It gets much worse from there. Center Trey Hopkins hasn't been the same after he tore his ACL at the end of 2020 season. Right guard Hakeem Adeniji entered the starting lineup at midseason and posted an 87.5% pass block win rate, which ranked 61st out of 69 qualifying guards. Spain, for what it's worth, is in 68th over that timeframe.
Adeniji was benched for Carman during the AFC Championship Game, only for the Bengals to turn back to Adeniji as the game went along. The Bengals would probably prefer to be starting Carman, but the rookie second-rounder was benched after an ugly stretch as a starter during the fall. Right tackle Isaiah Prince is filling in for the injured Riley Reiff; he ranks 61st out of 68 tackles in pass block win rate since entering the lineup in Week 13. These guys have to block Aaron Donald.
And yes, of course, you can argue that the Bengals have needed to rely on Hopkins, Adeniji and Prince throughout the postseason, faced some nasty pass-rushers and managed to survive. That's still not a great formula. The Titans and their Jeffery Simmons-led rush sacked Joe Burrow nine times. The Chiefs pressured Burrow on 35.7% of his dropbacks. Cincinnati has averaged 24 points per game during the postseason while facing the defenses that finished the regular season ranked 12th, 17th and 24th in defensive DVOA. Its offense has been closer to good enough than good. It has been held back by that offensive line, and now that line is about to face the league's most physically imposing defender.
We haven't even covered the other guys on the line. Von Miller wasn't always impactful after joining the Rams at midseason, but he has posted a staggering pass rush win rate of 36.7% during the playoffs and was dominant in the win over the Buccaneers. He has created 12 incompletions this postseason, or as many as Bengals edge rusher Sam Hubbard did during the entirety of the regular season. Leonard Floyd has been relatively quiet in January, but he had 9.5 sacks and 18 knockdowns before the postseason began.
The Rams are going to have multiple mismatches against the Bengals' offensive line on each and every snap, and while I don't think they should blitz much, they likely will use the occasional five-man rush and different alignments to try and force Cincinnati into one-on-one blocks against Donald, Miller and Floyd. They might also use sim pressures to try to force the Bengals to diagnose and adjust their protections after the snap, a place where they struggled against the Titans.
It's tough to imagine the Bengals suddenly turning into a great offensive line overnight. Instead, they will have to find ways to accommodate and paper over their line issues. Burrow will need to get the ball out quickly. They can run the ball directly at the line to slow down the rush. As Dan Orlovsky noted on Twitter, they need to get their screen game going against a Rams team that allowed 7.1 yards per screen attempt this season, the fifth-worst mark.
There's a possibility that this looks like the Panthers-Broncos matchup from Super Bowl 50 or the Chiefs-Buccaneers game from Super Bowl LV, where a defensive line vs. offensive line mismatch was pronounced enough to single-handedly decide the game.
Can the Bengals' front four win the game?
While the mismatch isn't quite as pronounced on the other side, Cincinnati might feel good about its own chances of creating havoc against the Rams' offensive line. Hendrickson was one of the league's best defensive players during his debut season in Cincinnati, while Hubbard added 7.5 sacks and 17 knockdowns.
The Bengals also found useful contributions from B.J. Hill, and while D.J. Reader isn't used as an interior penetrator, he is an excellent run defender and does a great job of overwhelming opposing linemen. I'd feel better if they had Larry Ogunjobi, who had seven sacks and 16 knockdowns before going down with a season-ending injury in the wild-card win over the Raiders.
Unlike the matchup with Donald, the issue here is that the Bengals' strengths go up against the places where the Rams are best. Tackles Andrew Whitworth and Rob Havenstein ranked third and fifth, respectively, in pass block win rate this season. The Rams are much weaker on the interior, where they'll start guards Austin Corbett and David Edwards around center Brian Allen, but the Bengals don't have their best interior disruptor with Ogunjobi injured. Cincinnati almost always keeps Hendrickson on the right side of the defense against left tackles; I wonder if it will give him a few reps as an interior rusher to go against the softer underbelly of the Rams' line. The Bengals also need to use stunts to challenge those guards with their best pass-rushers, even if they begin their journeys from the edge.
Creating consistent pass pressure is Anarumo's best path to shutting down this Rams offense. Stafford ranks second in QBR when he's unpressured, but when teams get pressure, he drops to 14th. His completion percentage over expectation (CPOE) when pressured during the regular season was minus-11.4%, the fourth-worst mark. He ranked similarly in percentage of passes off target when pressured. We've seen Stafford fall apart at times under pressure this season, with the loss to the Titans as the most notable example.
For whatever perception there is that Stafford is playing his best football in the postseason while avoiding the mistakes we saw during the regular season, I'm not sure that amounts to much more than good luck. He has been lucky to benefit from a pair of dropped interceptions, including a would-be pick by Carlton Davis in the end zone against the Buccaneers and a catastrophic drop by San Francisco's Jaquiski Tartt in the NFC Championship Game.
Rams fans will likely note that Stafford has been let down by a couple of drops, but I'm bringing this up to make a point about the randomness of interceptions more than I am about his likely production in the Super Bowl. He can't control what happens once he lets go of the football, and we shouldn't draw conclusions about how he's playing off of one or two throws, good or bad. We've seen him be hot and cold in the same game, like when he went 15-of-16 for 153 yards and two touchdowns in the first half of the Week 18 game against the 49ers before going 6-of-16 for 85 yards with two interceptions after the break. Stafford is capable of anything in the Super Bowl, including winning or losing the game singlehandedly.
Attacking weaknesses for both teams
I mentioned that the Rams would use Donald to try to tunnel through the replacement-level players on the right side of the line, but Adeniji and Prince aren't the only question marks in Cincinnati's starting lineup.
When the Rams have the ball on offense, they're going to undoubtedly try to take shots against Eli Apple, who committed five pass interference penalties for 81 yards in his first season with the Bengals. Offenses have been able to hit shots past the journeyman corner in the past, and I wouldn't be shocked if we saw Beckham challenge his former Giants teammate on a vertical route or two up the sideline.
For the Bengals, the corner they'll look to target is Darious Williams. He missed time with an ankle injury and had his worst season as a starter in 2021, allowing a 95.8 passer rating in coverage while failing to intercept a single pass. Things have gotten worse in the postseason, with opposing passers generating 11.8 EPA and a 117.3 passer rating on 23 targets against him. The 49ers picked on Williams in the NFC title game, as he was blocked out of the play on the Deebo Samuel touchdown. Williams is going to have his hands full on the outside, where he should see either Chase or Higgins on the vast majority of passing downs.
The other player the 49ers picked on in the passing game was inside linebacker Troy Reeder. While he's a sound run defender, he can get lost at times in coverage. The Bengals will try to get high-low looks against Reeder, throwing routes in front of him to create opportunities for the dig and post routes Burrow hit to Higgins against the Chiefs. Both teams would rather not ask their linebackers to hold up too much in coverage, but Reeder was the linebacker San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan wanted to attack. I would suspect the Cincinnati coaches noticed.
Evan McPherson, playoff MVP?
OK, McPherson hasn't really been the most valuable player of the postseason, but the Bengals would not be in the Super Bowl if it weren't for their rookie kicker. He is having one of the most productive postseasons we've ever seen, as the 22-year-old has converted all 12 of his field goals and each of his four extra-point attempts.
McPherson has already set the record for most field goals in a postseason without a miss, and he's two away from tying Adam Vinatieri for most in any single postseason with 14. Given that he has hit two 52-yarders and a 54-yard attempt and kicked game-winners in back-to-back weeks, he isn't racking up points on gimmies, either. He has been incredibly valuable, and he has missed just two field goals in his last 14 games.
And yet, heading into the postseason, the Rams had actually gotten more out of their young kicker than Cincinnati with McPherson. Matt Gay's work on field goals and extra points was worth 9.7 points above expectation to the Rams in the regular season, which was the third-best mark in football. McPherson was 8.1 points above expectation, just behind in fourth place. McPherson was hurt by missing two game-winners against the Packers and failing on a pair of extra points.
While McPherson has elevated his stock during the postseason, Gay's run has been rockier. He has missed two field goals during the postseason, matching his regular season total in three games. Gay missed a 47-yard kick against the Buccaneers and then pushed a 54-yarder wide right against the 49ers. Suddenly, the Pro Bowl kicker looks shaky.
Reports during the Bucs game suggested that Gay might be dealing with an injury, although McVay denied those suggestions afterward. If Gay's 100 percent, I wouldn't be too worried about two missed kicks, especially with him getting to play the Super Bowl in superb conditions on his home field. For what it's worth, he has been healthy enough to hit seven extra points and five other field goals over the past three games.
McPherson is going to get (and deserve) plenty of attention, but the Rams have another weapon who has quietly helped swing things for them on special teams over the last two months. They gave Brandon Powell a chance to be their return man in December, and the results have been exciting. The former undrafted Falcons receiver took a punt 61 yards to the house against the Vikings and produced a 65-yard kick return against the Jaguars.
Five of Powell's 11 punt returns have gone for at least 15 yards, which is more than any other player over the regular season and postseason combined. He is also averaging 23.3 yards per kick return. He has quietly become a weapon and represents a meaningful advantage over a Bengals team that was well below-average on both kick and punt returns this season.
Does either coach have a game management edge?
I'm not sure we can count on either of these coaches to reliably make smart decisions on fourth down or in no man's land. McVay put on a clinic of what not to do with challenges during the NFC Championship Game, challenging a spot on a failed Stafford quarterback sneak before wasting a second in hoping Kyle Juszczyk fumbled at the end of a run. I wouldn't treat his performance as a new normal; he only used one challenge during the regular season and used two in the wild-card round, winning all three. McVay has often needed to be coaxed to get more aggressive on fourth down, and I would be worried that Stafford's failure to convert on the sneak might stick in his head if the Rams see a fourth-and-short in the Super Bowl.
Taylor's game management has often led the Bengals to settle for long field-goal attempts, and while McPherson has bailed them out in the postseason, that management cost the Bengals in their near-victory over the Packers in October. I also still can't believe that they repeatedly went for it on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line with 57 seconds to go in a tie game against the Chiefs in the regular season, although that, too, worked out well for Taylor & Co. Tony Romo rightly criticized the Bengals for trying to win in the AFC Championship Game by controlling the clock early, a tactic that hasn't worked for most teams. Cincinnati won despite running the ball on early downs during the first half.
It would behoove the Bengals to get more aggressive in scoring range, both because they can't count on McPherson to hit every kick and because they might need to score a lot of points to beat the Rams. Cincinnati has scored just four touchdowns in 11 red-zone trips this postseason, including one in four shots against the Chiefs. That formula has worked in three games, but it's hard to imagine it winning yet again without improving inside the 20-yard line.
A Super Bowl underdog similarity
It's hard to not see what the Bengals have done over the past few weeks and think about a famous upset from the past. In 1969, a brash, well-dressed young quarterback named Joe unexpectedly took his team to the Super Bowl. Then, of course, it was Joe Namath and the Jets in Super Bowl III. As 18-point underdogs up against the league's brightest young coach in Don Shula, the Jets were seen as sacrificial lambs. They won comfortably over the Colts.
Lost in the faded memories of that game is what won it for the Jets: defense. They intercepted Earl Morrall three times, and when the Colts benched their starter for ailing legend Johnny Unitas, the Jets got to him, too. New York forced five takeaways, and you're not going to win many games when you turn the ball over five times. I don't think that's what the Rams are about to do, but we know Stafford, Akers and even Kupp can be sloppy with the football. There's a universe where the Bengals win this game by forcing four takeaways.
It's tempting to say that the Bengals need a spectacular game from their own young Joe to win Super Bowl LVI, but what happened all those years ago is a reminder of how underdogs can spur upsets without having to produce dominant offensive games. The Bengals have won with excellent kicking, shutdown defense for stretches of halves, key conversions from Burrow in big moments and game-sealing interceptions. That formula might not be sticky long-term, but it has worked for three games so far.
At the same time, we know Burrow has the ability to throw for 400 yards if necessary. The Bengals have won the past three games despite not hitting top gear on offense. The Rams will start Williams and Reeder. They've gotten by at safety -- where they lost Jordan Fuller and Taylor Rapp at the end of the regular season -- with special-teamer Nick Scott and Eric Weddle, who was plucked out of retirement last month. Weddle was supposed to be a part-time player, but his snaps have jumped from 34% to 85% to 100% over his three games. It's not difficult to imagine a scenario in which the Bengals avoid Ramsey, pick apart the inexperienced (or over-experienced) members of the secondary and do enough on defense to slow down Stafford.
The pick
And yet, I lean toward the Rams. I don't see how the Bengals block Donald; if the Rams can collapse the pocket, it's going to stifle the Cincinnati offense. The Titans ate Burrow for lunch and held the Bengals to 17 first downs on 12 possessions. They won that game because they picked up two short fields on interceptions and faced a Tennessee team that was grossly overrated by its record. The Bengals were actually a better team than the Titans during the regular season, finishing three spots ahead of Tennessee in the DVOA rankings.
The bad news is that the Bengals were 17th, and while the Titans were 20th, the Rams finished fifth. DVOA rankings don't tell the whole story -- especially for a single-game matchup -- but I think the Rams match up much better against the Bengals than the other way around.
In a game in which both teams will probably have to rush the passer without blitzing, the Rams have a comfortable advantage in terms of both creating pass pressure and preventing it from getting home. I don't think picking individual games amounts to much more than entertainment value, but after going all-in this season, I think McVay & Co. will take home the gold. Rams 27, Bengals 17.