Playoff Picks: Super Bowl, 2021

It’s been an amazing postseason with six memorable divisional and championship round games. And now it’s down to this weekend’s clash between the SuperTeam Los Angeles Rams and the Decades-in-the-making Rebuilt Cincinnati Bengals.

But first, the results from two weeks ago:

Neither picked well during the Championship round. Those were tough ones to handicap. The Super Bowl itself isn’t an easy one either, but here goes:

Sunday, February 13

Bengals vs Rams (-4, 48.5 o/u)

Andy: Often the Super Bowl depresses me a bit. My home team hasn’t been in the game since I was almost 2-years-old back in 1977. It’s the last game of football of consequence until September. The matchups haven’t been that bad in recent years, but often in the past sucked.

But while Kansas City may have been the better team on paper, it was refreshing to see Cincinnati come back and win that game. And, while Cincinnati v San Francisco III would have been fine, I was glad to see the Rams come back in the NFC championship game for a couple reasons that include opportunities for Matthew Stafford and Andrew Whitworth to chase championship rings after years of purgatory with their previous teams.

I love the QB matchup. Stafford is giving the Rams what they’d hoped for in trading for an upgrade over Jared Goff. Joe Burrow is playing out of his mind. The Bengals’ defense has come up big at times during the postseason, but has some exploitable holes. The Rams are better on defense, but are not as good as the Super Bowl team from a couple years ago. That makes it a bit of a surprise to me that the total has dropped from 50.5 to 48.5. I see that number going over.

As for the game, I’m at a tossup. Either team winning would be fine with me. The Bengals are young and exciting. The Rams have those veterans and Sean McVay, who generally seems like a relatively likeable guy. This could be one of those last-minute shootouts decided by a FG. … It actually would be fitting, based on how the rest of the postseason has gone, if it ended in overtime. That said, I am leaning toward thinking Stafford pulls it out and Whitworth gets a ring in likely his last game. Cincinnati will be back before Burrow is done, but this one goes to LA, Rams 37 Bengals 31.

Tony: Once the Bengals wrapped up their game against the Chiefs, I was really hoping for another Bengals-49ers matchup, just to relive the glory of the first Super Bowl I remember from 1982 (I’m not sure I actually saw it live, but remember Andy wearing out a VHS tape of it … and specifically remember shiny numbers on the 49ers jerseys that looked to me like blood), and in 1989, the first time I remember seeing a nasty football injury (Tim Krumrie’s broken leg).

Unfortunately, that might have been a better matchup, too.  Not that the Bengals can’t beat the Rams — but seeing two teams that virtually no one thought would make the Super Bowl at the beginning of the year — hell, the beginning of the playoffs — would have made for a compelling story.

I’ve gone back and forth on who I would throw my support behind, since I have no real love or beef with either team. I’m sure the Rams have broken my bleeding purple heart along the way, but never in a game that sticks out to me.  And the Bengals … well, aside from the two forementioned Super Bowls, they’ve been largely irrelevant my whole life.

I can’t even hold it against them that they thrashed my Vikings in my one time at Paul Brown Stadium — it was honestly comical, especially when the three-toothed hillbilly sitting in front of us turned around trying to insult the two guys wearing Vikings jerseys, and all he could muster up was giving us the double-bird and giggling like a methed-out school girl.

Ultimately, though, I will likely throw my support to the Bengals — the underdog story, and the lack of OBJ on their roster will probably win me over. That being said, my support and my pick to win are two different things — Rams win, 27-19, because I’m not allowed to have nice things.