Los Angeles Rams Nip New Orleans Saints In Overtime To Earn Super Bowl Berth

For the Los Angeles Rams, a return to the Super Bowl is a long time coming. Sure, the franchise enjoyed considerable success while located in St. Louis but when anything happens in the hinterlands of America it just doesn’t seem like a big deal. Now that the Rams are back in Los Angeles where they belong they’re also back in the Super Bowl for the first time since 1980. Now they’re looking for their first Super Bowl championship as a resident of the Pacific Time Zone following a 26-23 overtime victory over the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship game. (FWIW, the St. Louis Rams went to the Super Bowl in 2000 and won it in 2004).

Credit to the New Orleans Saints—they weren’t an easy out. Forget about head coach Sean Payton crying about a missed pass interference call late in the fourth quarter. That classless ‘sore loser’ behavior notwithstanding, the Saints fought tooth and nail but came up short. In the end, the Los Angeles Rams proved that they belong on the big stage. For the game, Jared Goff (297 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT) more than held his own against Drew Brees (249 yards, 2 TD, 1 INT). It was a good thing, since the Rams did a very impressive job holding Los Angeles’ punishing ground game in check. The Rams were held to just 77 yards rushing for the game which is in the same class of performance as the 56 yards the Chicago Bears allowed in their defensive domination of Los Angeles during the regular season. CJ Anderson led the Rams with 44 yards, Josh Reynolds added 16 and superstar running back Todd Gurley was held to just 10 yards though he did score a touchdown late in the first half.

New Orleans clearly wanted to ‘make Jared Goff beat them’ by shutting down the Rams’ rush and he obliged with a big assist from Los Angeles’ league best special teams. Greg Zuerlein was his usual stone cold self going 4 for 4 on field goals including the 57 yard strike in overtime that won the game. Goff showed considerable poise as he led his team back from a 13-0 first half deficit and another 10 point deficit after halftime. Down 20-10 late in the third quarter, the Rams would outscore the Saints 16-3 the rest of the way. It was another sign of the maturation of both Goff and his team—not only did the Rams scrap their way out of a pair of double digit holes but they found a way to win on a day where they clearly didn’t have their ‘best stuff’.

Los Angeles now heads to Atlanta to face the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII on February 3. The Patriots also won in overtime on Sunday, denying the Kansas City Chiefs after a frenzied last minute tying field goal drive engineered by Patrick Mahomes. The ‘public’ clearly loves to see New England back in the big game as evidenced by the early Super Bowl pointspread movement. Most sportsbooks opened the Rams as a -1 point favorite but quickly took a flurry of Patriots money to move the number as high as Patriots -2. At press time, the line has settled in a bit with New England a -1 -123 favorite. Takeback on the Rams is +1 +103 and the total is set at 58 (Over -105, Under -115).