Here are five things to know about the game for the NFL’s championship:
1. The Bengals are in the Super Bowl for the third time.
They are looking for their first NFL title. They lost to the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XVI and XXIII. Those games were played in Detroit and Miami, respectively, and both were close. Behind star quarterback Joe Montana and former Bengals assistant Bill Walsh, the 49ers won the first meeting 26-21 and the second one 20-16.
2. The Rams are in the Super Bowl for the fifth time.
The nomadic franchise lost Super Bowl XIV 31-19 to the Pittsburgh Steelers as the Los Angeles Rams.
Twenty years later, they won Super Bowl XXXIV over the Tennessee Titans 23-16 as the St. Louis Rams. They were heavy favorites to win it again two years later but were upset by the New England Patriots, a game that essentially ended the so-called Greatest Show on Turf and launched Tom Brady’s legendary career.
Four years ago (and back as the L.A. Rams), they took Brady and the Pats to the brink but ultimately succumbed 13-3 in Super Bowl LIII.
3. The Rams will be the second team to play the Super Bowl on their home field.
It never happened in the first 54 editions of the game, but now it is happening two years in a row.
This will be the first time in front of a full-capacity crowd.
Last year, the Buccaneers beat the Chiefs 31-9 in Tampa Bay, but only 24,835 were listed as being in attendance because of COVID-19 restrictions.
4. The Bengals and Rams have played 14 times.
They last squared off in 2019, a 24-10 Rams victory in London.
Prior to that, the Bengals won three in a row in the series, which began with a 15-12 Rams victory in L.A. in 1972.
5. A team founded in Ohio will win the NFL title for the 16th time.
The Bengals began play in 1968 as members of the American Football League. They made the playoffs for the first time two years later but have never won it all.
The Rams began play in 1937 in Cleveland, where they won the 1945 NFL championship. They moved to L.A. the following year and were there until 1995, when they moved to St. Louis.
In all, the Rams (who moved back to L.A. in 2016) have won three NFL championships (including one Super Bowl) while the Cleveland Browns have won four.
No team operating out of Ohio at the time has won the Super Bowl.
The last team to win the NFL championship while based in Ohio was the Browns in 1964, but teams founded in the state have won 15 in all — more than any other state.
That includes the Browns (four), Rams (three) and Detroit Lions (four), who began as the Portsmouth Spartans. The now-defunct Akron Pros won the first league championship in 1920, the Canton Bulldogs won in ‘22 and ‘23 and the Cleveland Bulldogs won in 1924. Like the Pros, neither Bulldogs franchise survived the ‘20s as the league opted to purge some franchises and focus on teams mostly in larger cities mostly on the East Coast.
Wisconsin has 13 NFL championships, all won by the Green Bay Packers. They have won four Super Bowls and won nine titles before the Super Bowl era began in 1966.
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