You win Super Bowls off the backs of your best players. It’s decided on their arms, their hands, their will. If your big guns don’t come to play, you’re not going to win. No role player will save the day when the chips are down. No, your stars must have brought their A-game to beat the final boss.
Nothing less.
After narrowly winning Super Bowl LVI 23-20 over the Cincinnati Bengals, the Los Angeles Rams have a lot of blessings to be thankful for. Climbing this impossible mountain means that not only do you have a great deal of luck on your side, you also need a bevy of stars—true game-changers in every sense of the hyphenated, melodramatic word.
On a team with Aaron Donald, Jalen Ramsey and Von Miller, arguably none are more significant than Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp (+600 to capture the award, per Tipico Sportsbook).
Now the whole city screaming "COOOOOOP." Super Bowl MVP.#SBLVI #RamsHouse pic.twitter.com/4s41vOKEgq
— NFL (@NFL) February 14, 2022
The 2021 receiving triple-crown winner, a First-Team All-Pro, and now Super Bowl MVP, Kupp wasn’t always in the conversation for the NFL’s best player. Nor was he someone you would ever envision a championship team feeding over and over on a fourth-quarter, title-winning drive. Five seasons ago, Kupp was merely a solid possession receiver on a solid Rams playoff team. A good contributor, but not someone you write home about. A savvy and reliable player, but not a face of the league.
In truth, there’s nothing typical about Kupp. Of all people, of every special superstar to strap on a helmet on Sunday, this Super Bowl could’ve only ended in his arms. With 5:00 remaining on their last meaningful possession, down four, and the entire season on the line, the Rams ensured that it did.
From their own 30, the Rams faced a 4th and 1. Miss in any fashion and the Bengals likely drive the other way for the dagger. This wasn’t a situation to get cute.
Get Kupp the ball.
Rams convert on 4th and 1 with @CooperKupp. #RamsHouse
📺: #SBLVI on NBC
📱: https://t.co/K02y40b5Nu pic.twitter.com/thWJjbHjru— NFL (@NFL) February 14, 2022
Later, on 2nd and 7, the Rams needed another clutch play while in Bengals territory. Already a little behind the sticks, every yard and second counted. Don’t overthink it.
Get Kupp the ball.
An absolute DIME from Stafford has the Rams in Bengals territory. #RamsHouse
📺: #SBLVI on NBC
📱: https://t.co/K02y40b5Nu pic.twitter.com/5kJgkumowM— NFL (@NFL) February 14, 2022
Many NFL greats often talk about how the game “slows down” in the final moments of a Super Bowl. Already hopped up on adrenaline, your mind is racing beyond a mile per minute. You’re intimately aware of an entire country watching you at home, magnifying the pressure. Should results break the right way, what you’re about to experience will be one of the greatest moments of your life. Unfiltered euphoria. Or, in a fit of poor fortune, it’ll be a moment of anguish you’ll learn to accept–or repress–soon enough.
The last minutes of a Super Bowl are where legends are created. They are figuratively what people tell their grandkids in hallowed terms about once they pass on this sport as a passion. NFL Films doesn’t fixate on the regular-season greats and their otherwise empty statistics. Why would they? Heroes coming through when it’s most dire is why we watch football, why we watch sports in the first place. A hero is someone we can all identify with and see ourselves in. How empty would this entire endeavor of American gladiators be if we couldn’t relate to someone stepping up as a professional?
With 1:29 remaining, and the Rams on the verge of their first Super Bowl in over two decades, Kupp became that universal hero.
Get Kupp the ball.
IT'S BEEN COOPER KUPP ALL YEAR.
HE DOES IT AGAIN. #RamsHouse
📺: #SBLVI on NBC
📱: https://t.co/K02y40b5Nu pic.twitter.com/02QlsZmirX— NFL (@NFL) February 14, 2022
Five touches. One fourth-down conversion. 49 yards. And the game-winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. A dream season for Kupp with the perfect nightcap.
The Rams, by every measure, had an All-Star team in 2021. Donald and Miller will walk into the Hall of Fame the second they retired. Ramsey, at his pace, will probably join them in that exclusive club. They were supposed to enjoy this sort of February glory. It was their destination from the start.
It’s fitting then that instead of any of their other weighty names, L.A. won thanks to Kupp. He brought his A-game to football’s biggest stage, as he did all year, and he’s who we’ll glow about one day to our grandkids. Heck, we might even tell everyone we know and love now that we saw Cooper Kupp win a Super Bowl for the Rams. We’ll say our words don’t do Kupp–or the Rams–justice either. They couldn’t.
You just had to be there.
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