Watch Super Bowl LVI from SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles live on Sky Sports NFL on Sunday; the AFC's Cincinnati Bengals will face the Los Angeles Rams from the NFC (Kick-Off, 11.30pm), with live coverage underway from 10pm
Saturday 12 February 2022 09:58, UK
The Cincinnati Bengals are in the Super Bowl! Just let that sink in.
This team, which finished an NFL-worst 2-14 only two years ago, and had only four wins to their name last season, have made it to just their third ever Super Bowl, and first since the 1988 season.
The Bengals, in fact, hadn't won even a playoff game in 31 years until, led by their superstar second-year quarterback Joe Burrow, they swept aside the Las Vegas Raiders in the Wild Card, followed that up by defeating the AFC No 1-seeded Tennessee Titans in the divisional round, before then denying the Kansas City Chiefs a third-straight Super Bowl in the Championship game.
We take a look back on the Rams' road to Super Bowl LVI...
It was clear early on in the 2021 season that this Bengals side were much improved, however their Super Bowl credentials took a little longer to emerge.
At the midway point of the season, Cincinnati owned just a 5-4 record, heading into their Bye Week off the back of a shock 34-31 loss to the previously one-win New York Jets and a 41-16 drubbing at home against division rivals, the Cleveland Browns.
Ja'Marr Chase, the rookie wide receiver taken with the fifth overall pick of the 2022 Draft was a revelation, despite offseason murmurings about his habit of dropping the football. Any such concerns quickly evaporated as he opened his NFL career with a 100-yard outing (and 50-yard TD) in Cincinnati's overtime win over the Minnesota Vikings in the season opener.
Chase went over 150 yards in the Week Five overtime loss to the Green Bay Packers and then topped 200 - and had a stunning 82-yard TD - in a 41-17 road hammering of the Baltimore Ravens in Week Seven.
Following a slight mid-season slump that coincided with the team's, Chase had another 100-yard day as the Bengals swept the Ravens with a Week 16 win, while he followed that up a week later with a simply stunning 266-yard and three-TD outing as the Bengals truly announced themselves to the world with a 34-31 regular season win over the Chiefs.
A further highlight in a season full of them, was Cincinnati's sweep of the Pittsburgh Steelers - their first since the 2009 season. Pittsburgh had since won 19 of the last 23 meetings (including playoffs) between the two teams coming into the season, but the 41-10 hammering dished out in Week 12 truly signalled a power shift in the AFC North.
There was that mid-season slump, for starters, while further defeats at home to fellow playoffs contenders, the Los Angeles Chargers and San Francisco 49ers (in overtime), in consecutive weeks, dropped the Bengals to 7-6 on the season and made a postseason berth appear out of reach.
Burrow has looked everything Cincinnati had hoped for when taking him as the No 1 pick in the 2020 Draft, with the second-year QB throwing for 4,611 yards and 34 touchdowns on the season - and only a year on from a horrific knee injury sustained in his rookie campaign.
However, heading into the Bye in Week 10, Burrow had thrown 11 interceptions in only nine games, with only two of those completely blemish-free - the Vikings win and Week Four against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Defeat to the Chicago Bears in Week Two was a particularly chastening experience for Burrow as he was picked off a season-high three times, while he also returned double-interception days in the defeats to the Packers and Browns.
But in the second half of the season, Burrow would throw only three further interceptions as the Bengals got hot down the stretch, winning three-straight from Week 15 to book a playoff berth before then resting their starters in the season finale against the Browns.
The two biggest have already been mentioned. Burrow and Chase - former college team-mates at LSU - have an incredible connection that has further flourished in the pros.
Chase's 1,455 receiving yards in the season is a rookie record in the Super Bowl era, while his five receiving TDs of 50+ yards led the NFL and only serves to highlight his big-play ability.
Burrow got real hot down the stretch of the season, throwing for 525 yards and four touchdowns in the Week 16 win over the Ravens and then following that up with another four-TD day, and 446 yards, to topple the Chiefs. And that form has only continued in the playoffs.
Burrow, who led LSU on an undefeated season in his final year in college, would join Hall of Famers Joe Montana and Joe Namath as the only starting QBs in history to win a National Championship and a Super Bowl if he were to win on Sunday. He would also become the only such quarterback to also have a Heisman Trophy to his name.
Elsewhere on offense, the Bengals also boast running back Joe Mixon, fresh from a career-high 1,519 scrimmage yards this season, and impressive wideouts Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd only add to Burrow's vast arsenal.
The Bengals defense may seem a more modest bunch, but linebacker Logan Wilson, in particular, packs a punch, and pass rusher Trey Hendrickson has proven to be a terrific bit of business as he set a new personal and franchise record with 14 sacks following his offseason arrival from the New Orleans Saints.
And don't you dare forget the legend that is Cincinnati's clutch rookie kicker Evan McPherson. He has made 12 field goals of over 50 yards this season, three of which coming in the playoffs, and has gone 4-for-4 in the playoffs, including two walk-off winners in the divisional round and Championship game.
The Bengals have run it close the entire postseason, becoming the first team to reach the Super Bowl with all three of their playoff wins decided by a one-score margin.
It's understandable when you consider the quality of opposition in a stacked AFC. Even in the Wild Card round, Cincinnati needed everything they had to beat a streaking Raiders side that entered the playoffs on a run of four-straight wins.
REPORT: Raiders 19-26 Bengals - Wild Card
Late in the first half, the Bengals went up by 14 courtesy of a 10-yard TD toss from Burrow to Boyd, but the Raiders refused to go away and had the chance to take the game to overtime when finding themselves down by seven and placed at the Cincinnati nine-yard line inside the final minute of the game. Derek Carr was subsequently picked off on 4th-and-Goal with 17 seconds left and so the Bengals moved on to Tennessee.
REPORT: Bengals 19-16 Titans - Divisional Round
Where they'd face the AFC No 1 seed in the Titans, who had their reigning, two-time league leading rusher returning from injury for the contest. But, Derrick Henry could muster only 62 yards (and one TD) on carries and, though their ferocious defense would sack Burrow a playoff-record nine times, a late Ryan Tannehill interception - his third of the game - would help set up McPherson's game-winning field goal.
REPORT: Bengals 27-24 Chiefs: AFC Championship
The mighty Chiefs lie in wait, at Arrowhead Stadium, hosting their fourth AFC Championship game in as many years but, just as was the case in the two teams' Week 17 regular season meeting, the Bengals overcame an 11-point half-time deficit and restricted the high-powered KC offense to just three second-half points for a second time too.
Cincinnati would need the assistance of overtime on this occasion but, despite Kansas City winning the coin toss as they did when defeating the Buffalo Bills in OT the previous week, the Bengals defense would come up clutch once more - Vonn Bell intercepting Mahomes - before McPherson again fired through the uprights to send Cincy to the Super Bowl.
It's a third ever trip to the Super Bowl for the Bengals, but a first in 33 years. And they are one of only 12 teams in NFL history to have never won it.
Cincinnati lost to the burgeoning dynasty of the San Francisco 49ers on both of their prior visits in the 1981 and '88 season. And, briefly, it looked like they might face a third date of destiny with the 49ers this year as they led the NFC Championship game before a late comeback by the Los Angeles Rams.
Bengals legend, and now broadcaster, Cris Collinsworth will rather fittingly be in the booth commentating on the game for NBC, who have the Super Bowl rights this year. Collinsworth played in both of Cincinnati's previous Super Bowls, as a rookie in 1981 and then bowing out from the sport after defeat to end the 1988 season.
Collinsworth, in fact, caught five passes for 107 yards in the first of those Super Bowls, but it was his costly second-quarter fumble that preceded a 92-yard 49er touchdown drive to give them a two-score lead on their way to a fairly comfortable 26-21 win.
In their second meeting at the back-end of the decade, the Bengals made a much greater fist of it and were three points up with three minutes and 20 seconds to. But, as legend has it, Montana led San Francisco on a 92-yard, game-winning drive that is more famous for him coolly celeb-spotting in the crowd - "Isn't that John Candy?", he pointed out as he broke Bengals hearts.
There has been hardly anything for the franchise, founded in 1968, to shout about before or since. Until now. Can Burrow and co now deliver Cincinnati the ultimate prize this Sunday?
Watch Super Bowl LVI live on Sky Sports NFL and Main Event from 10pm on Sunday, February 13, with current players Kirk Cousins and Calais Campbell, and Hall of Famer Warren Moon among the guests joining Neil Reynolds for 90 minutes of build-up to the big game.