Rams vs. Bengals by the numbers 5 key stats from Los Angeles

Posted by seestyle on July 25th, 2022

The Rams made it a mi sion to go all in for the 2021 season, and it paid off in the end.

Propelled by a late touchdown pa s from Matthew Stafford Atlanta Braves Jersey to Cooper Kupp, Los Angeles came away the winners in Super Bowl 56, beating the Bengals 23-20 on Sunday.

From Kupp's late heroics to Aaron Donald's relentle s pre sure, there were plenty of notable stats from the game that helped tell the story of how the Rams overcame the Bengals to win their first title since coming to Los Angeles.

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Sporting News breaks down Super Bowl 56 by the numbers.

Sacks

Coming into the game, one of the major narratives was whether the Bengals would be able to pa s protect for quarterback Joe Burrow. The answer in the first half was largely yes. The answer in the second half? Not so much.

The Bengals allowed Burrow to be sacked just one time in the first half, but greatly improved that total in the second half, racking up six in the final two quarters as the game was on the line. The seven sacks sustained by Burrow tied a Super Bowl record set once by the Cowboys' Roger Staubach in the 1976 Super Bowl against the Steelers, .

Donald and Von Miller each led the team with two sacks a piece, and both were tied with Ernest Jones with three quarterback hits. Donald and Miller became only the fourth set of teammates to each tally a pair of John Smoltz Jersey sacks in a game, .

1976 Super Bowl: Steelers' Dwight White (two sacks) and L.C. Greenwood (four sacks) vs. Cowboys1978 Super Bowl: Broncos' Rubin Carter (two sacks) and Lyle Alzado (two sacks) vs. Cowboys2016 Super Bowl: Broncos' DeMarcus Ware (two sacks) and Von Miller (2.5 sacks) vs. PanthersStafford-to-Kupp connection

Think Stafford enjoyed having Kupp as a receiver in his first year in L.A.?

, from start to finish on the year, the pair connected for 22 receiving touchdowns, the Nick Markakis Jersey second-most in a single season behind only Tom Brady to Randy Mo s for 24 touchdowns in 2007.

Kupp also became only the 19th player in NFL history to record two receiving touchdowns in a Super Bowl, , and he is the only one to have caught his second as a go-ahead, game-winning score.

Super Will Smith Jersey Bowl MVP voters clearly saw Kupp as having the standout performance of the game as he became just the seventh wide receiver in history to win the honor.

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Bengals' pa sing succe s

Despite the aggre sive pa s rush of the Rams, Burrow and the Bengals found plenty of succe s through the air.

While Kupp might have been the 19th player in NFL history with two receiving touchdowns in a Super Bowl, Cincinnati wideout Tee Higgins was technically the 18th, as he collected his second score of the game just 12 seconds into the third quarter on a 75-yard touchdown pa s. That pa s, , was tied for the seventh-longest in the history of the game.

Higgins and rookie Ja'Marr Chase also became only the 14th pair of teammates ever to have more than 80 receiving yards in the same game, , as Chase had 89 receiving yards on five catches. Chase made his own mark early in the game, when he caught a 46-yard reception, the fourth-longest by a rookie in the Super Bowl, .

Rams' rushing yards

Not everything was going well for Los Angeles, however. The Cincinnati defense shut down the Rams' rushing attack despite the team having its full stable of running back Chipper Jones Jersey options.

Los Angeles was contained to just 43 yards on the ground on 23 carries against Cincinnati. That is the second-fewest rushing yards for a winning team, trailing only the 29 yards Warren Spahn Jersey on 13 carries by the Rams in 1999, when St. Louis beat the Titans 23-16, .

The 1.9 yards per carry was the lowest ever by a Super Bowl-winning team.

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Lack of penalties

Up until the final two minutes of play, there were few yellow flags thrown out on the field. And even at the end, the tally was one of the lowest in Super Bowl history.

, the 41 combined penalty yards were the seventh-fewest in the history of the big game. The six total penalties between the two teams is tied for the .

Both numbers would have been lower had it not been for two penalties for a combined seven yards by Cincinnati in the final 1:47 of the game.