Does Cincinnati make the Cinderella Story perfect?
Welcome to Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles, and with it, the first Super Bowl ever to feature none of the top 3 seeds in their respective conferences. The Super Bowl of the underdogs, so to speak, which makes it all the more exciting.
Only the Bengals should be considered real underdogs, since they were the worst team in the league two years ago. The Rams, on the other hand, made it to the Super Bowl just three years ago – and lost to the New England Patriots led by Tom Brady with 3:13.
The Rams should definitely manage more than just three points this year – especially since they were able to land a new quarterback in Matthew Stafford before the season. Although he is playing in his first playoffs ever, he can already be called an old hand.
This is in stark contrast to Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, who rose like a phoenix from the ashes after his serious injury last year. For this reason, we also see the advantages at this position on the side of the Rams. It was not unusual for the team with the more experienced captain to win the Super Bowl.
While the Super Bowl will be held in LA this year, the Bengals are officially considered the home team because home field traditionally rotates between the two conferences each year. We should pay close attention to this when betting to avoid mistakenly considering the Rams as the home team.
In the Super Bowl 2022, our prediction for Bengals vs. Rams is in any case a success for the team from Los Angeles, which is competing in its own stadium and simply has the deeper squad at its disposal – and that at all positions, especially on defence.
Kickoff of Super Bowl 56 is on Monday night at 00:30 in Los Angeles. The hotly anticipated major event can be watched live on ProSieben and on DAZN. With an NFL Game Pass, the event can even be watched in the original English and with all the US TV spots.
Cincinnati Bengals – Statistics & current form
The Bengals are writing the quintessential Cinderella story this season. Two years ago, they finished the regular season with a 2-14 record, securing the No. 1 pick in the draft in the first place, which they then used to select Joe Burrow.
He, in turn, tore almost every ligament in his right knee after a few games of the following season and needed almost a year to come back. His performances this season have been all the more astonishing.
Quite rightly, he was named Comeback Player of the Year by the NFL on Friday night. It is also actually only the second time that two former No. 1 picks have met in a Super Bowl. The first time was in 2016 when Manning vs. Newton.
O-Line with significant increase recently
But what are the Bengals’ chances of pulling off the surprise? While we at the betting pool had little hope for Cincinnati after the Titans game, they have been able to improve from game to game – especially their susceptible O-line.
They allowed an unbelievable nine sacks against Tennessee and thus put Burrow in trouble again and again. Against the Chiefs, now in the Conference Finals, they allowed only one sack. They also minimised the loss of space from 68 to only 7 yards.
If their O-line can continue this trend, the Bengals have a chance. Against the outstanding pass rushers of the Rams around Aaron Donald, however, we see a great danger that they will once again allow numerous sacks. For us, a major reason to see the Rams ahead in this matchup.
Burrow as cool as he looks?
There is probably no player currently who looks cooler than Joe Burrow. Even Odell Beckham of the upcoming opponents admitted that in one of his social media posts recently. Still, the question will be whether he can do the same in the Super Bowl in front of billions of fans worldwide.
We must not forget that he is only 25 years old. Should his O-line let him down, we can well imagine that his house of cards of coolness will collapse. Then he will need the help of his receivers Chase or Higgins to pull him out of the swamp.
However, since these two are only 21 and 23 years old, it would be very surprising if all the youngsters would act completely flawlessly. Therefore, in the Super Bowl match between Cincinnati and Los Angeles, a tip against the Bengals is the more promising option in this case, even if this would then destroy the Cinderella fairytale.
Key Players:
QB: Joe Burrow
RB: Joe Mixon
WR: Ja’Marr Chase
WR: Tee Higgins
K: Evan McPherson
Los Angeles Rams – stats & current form
The Rams are back in the Super Bowl after three years – but this time as the favourites. If they were the underdogs in 2019 against Brady’s Patriots, that role now falls to the Bengals in 2022. The Rams can live with that, because it greatly increases their chances.
All bookmakers see them as the clear favourites with a 4-5 point lead. This is quite justified when we look at their squad. On paper, they shouldn’t let anything go to waste on Sunday. In addition, Beckham and Miller were added during the season.
The two veterans then also played a big part in the successful playoffs. Beckham, for example, caught a touchdown against the Cards and scored 113 yards on nine receptions against the 49ers in the Conference Final.
Rams clearly more experienced than Bengals
This one Super Bowl in 2019 will definitely help LA this year, as numerous players were already involved then (including Donald and Ramsey Whitworth). Having experienced all this hullabaloo before is certainly no disadvantage.
Even though quarterback Matthew Stafford is playing in his first playoffs, at 34 years old he is a whopping nine years older than his counterpart. In the last seven years, the older quarterback has won the Super Bowl against the younger one five times. Not an entirely uninteresting statistic for Sunday.
Will Stafford stay on fire?
Stafford’s passer rating average in the playoffs is 123.9 – a terrific value. Since Burrow is currently so highly praised in the media, this difference is often lost and the youngster is portrayed as too good.
This is then also noticeable in the ratings, where the Rams are surprisingly only seen just ahead. We see it a little differently and would still clearly recommend odds on Los Angeles for Bengals vs Rams in the Super Bowl even with a slight handicap.
Key Players:
QB: Matthew Stafford
RB: Cam Akers
WR: Odell Beckham Jr.
WR: Cooper Kupp
K: Matt Gay
Cincinnati Bengals – Los Angeles Rams Head-to-head comparison / H2H record
The two teams have only played each other once in this Cincinnati vs. LA matchup. In 2019, the Rams beat the Bengals 24-10, also at home, but there wasn’t much to see from either Burrow or Stafford at the time.
Moreover, this was exactly the season when the Bengals were the worst team in the league. In this respect, the direct duels in this Super Bowl LVI are negligible. Rather, we can take another look at the statistics in the postseason at this point.
Here, the Rams score an average of 4.0 points and 62.4 yards more than the Bengals. Defensively, they allow 1.4 points and a full 96.3 yards less per game. It is unusual for a Super Bowl contender to be clearly ahead in both areas, and accordingly LA must be considered the clear favourite.
The fact that bettors are taking a cautious approach here could also be due to the hype surrounding Joe Burrow. For Cincinnati vs. LA, we see a bet on both Rams -4 and Rams + Under 48.5 as being appropriate. We doubt that the Bengals will score significantly more than 20 points.
Cincinnati Bengals – Los Angeles Rams Tip
While the Bengals are officially the home team, they won’t get much out of that home field advantage. On the contrary, the team that knows this stadium and is 7-3 there this season (including playoffs) are the Rams.
Since they are also clearly ahead in both the offensive and defensive stats, there is no way for us to avoid a clear favourite status for the Californians. Even Evan McPherson, the Bengals’ wonder kicker, can’t change that.
Thus, the betting odds on LA are to be favoured for Bengals against Rams in Super Bowl 56. We define the most interesting betting option here as a combination of Rams + Under points. In the last Super Bowl with Rams participation, only 16 total points were scored and in Bengals playoff games the average was also only 43.6 points.
Alternatively, however, we can recommend touchdown bets on Odell Beckham. The latter has established himself as Stafford’s No. 1 kickoff target in the postseason, which has greatly increased his chances of finding the end zone.
