Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams will face the Cincinnati Bengals for the first time since winning the Super Bowl in 2021 on Monday Night Football in Week 3. Ahead of Monday’s rematch, Stafford shared his memories from the Rams’ Super Bowl victory over the Bengals.
He sees some similarities in the Bengals defense, but there are also plenty of differences from the team the Rams faced last February.
Buy Rams Tickets“No, I remember a decent amount of it. I’m sure there’s a lot of it that I’ll probably have to be reminded about in certain instances, both before and after, all that kind of stuff,” Stafford said. “But I did everything I could in that game to try to make it feel like every other game and that works for me. It may not work for everybody else. That works for me. Felt like we played at a pretty high level. Obviously had some mistakes along the way, like every single game, but were able to pull it out in the end. It’s a little bit of a different personnel defense-wise than we played back then, especially in the secondary. There are some different guys that are playing a little bit more than there were back then. The guys up front are pretty similar, but I got a lot of respect for the defensive coordinator. He does a great job of making it tough on quarterbacks and you got to go out there and play at a high level.”
In his debut season with the Rams in 2021, Stafford helped lead Los Angeles to a Super Bowl, which ended with a meeting against Cincinnati. The veteran quarterback would complete 26 of his 40 attempts for 283 yards, three touchdowns, and two interceptions.
Stafford’s third touchdown pass was a 1-yard score to Cooper Kupp with under two minutes remaining and it ended up being the game-winning touchdown. Entering Monday night’s matchup, the Bengals are going to have different players than they had during the Super Bowl two seasons ago.
At the same time, Stafford knows that the Bengals have a talented defensive coordinator in Lou Anarumo who can make things difficult on opposing quarterbacks. While the Rams have been rolling on offense sans Kupp to begin the season, Stafford is hoping for a similar outcome as the Super Bowl on Monday versus the Bengals.
