Odell Beckham Jr. watches Rams win through tears
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Receiver Odell Beckham Jr. could do nothing but watch with tears streaming down his face as his Rams teammates rallied for a 23-20 victory Sunday over the Bengals to help him win his first Super Bowl ring.
He did plenty to help them get in that position before suffering a knee injury late in the second quarter.
Beckham had two catches for 52 yards, including the first touchdown of the game before suffering a knee injury and leaving the game.
The injury seemed to stagnate the Rams’ offense. After they had scored two touchdowns on their first four offensive drives with Beckham on the field, they had four three-and-outs, two turnovers and a field goal on their next seven.
Beckham wasn’t about to let the injury dampen his pleasure with the championship.
“This was exactly God’s plan,” he posted on Twitter after the game.
No call
The officials mostly stayed out of the game by making very few calls until the final two minutes of the game.
Their preference to keep the flags in their pockets was particularly noticeable on a long touchdown pass from Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow to Tee Higgins early in the third quarter.
Higgins appeared to use cornerback Jalen Ramsey’s facemask to pull him out of the way to make the catch before separating and sprinting down the sideline for a score.
“The crew did not see any contact that warranted pass interference,” Ronald Torbert, who was working his first Super Bowl as a referee, said after the game. “We felt it was a contested catch, and the crew didn’t see any contact that rose to the level of pass interference.”
When pressed on the issue, he doubled down.
“Our rule is that if there is a grab and twist and turn, there’s enough for a foul,” he said. “If there’s just a rake across the facemask, where there’s not a twist and turn even if there’s a grab, there is no foul. The officials did not see any contact that rose to the level of a foul for a 15-yard facemask.”
Enjoying the moment
Bengals kicker Evan McPherson made both of his field goal attempts to tie Adam Vinatieri’s record of 14 made field goals in a single postseason, but he may be remembered more for staying out on the field to watch the halftime show while his teammates were in the locker room.
“It is a once in a lifetime opportunity really and so in football, I feel like we have to compartmentalize a lot of things, so I thought I was able to compartmentalize the game from the halftime show,” he said. “Those are some of my favorite artists. Like I said, it is a once in a lifetime deal. I thought it was pretty special.”
As far as the record, McPherson would have rather won a ring.
“I mean that is cool and all, but it sucks we didn’t win,” he said.
Mismatch
The seven sacks by the Rams in the game stand out on the stat sheet, but it doesn’t tell the whole story of just how dominant the defensive front was on Sunday.
Cincinnati finished with just a 14 percent pass-block win rate, the worst by any team in a single game this season.
Burrow was sacked 19 times in the playoffs, the most in a single postseason.
Family affair
The celebrations weren’t limited to a Super Bowl championship for the Rams on Sunday.
Receiver Van Jefferson’s wife Samaria went into labor during the game and was taken to the hospital to give birth.
Jefferson, who finished with four catches for 23 yards, left the stadium immediately after the win to get to the hospital.
Safety Taylor Rapp got on one knee as confetti flew and his teammates celebrated the victory to propose to his girlfriend.
Odds and ends
The Bengals became the eighth straight team to lose the Super Bowl after winning the opening coin toss. It landed heads and they chose to defer their option to the second half.
The Rams had the ball first and didn’t score, extending a run of futility on the opening drive of the Super Bowl. Chicago was the last team to score on the game’s first drive 15 years ago when Devin Hester took the kickoff back for a touchdown.
No team has scored on its opening drive at all since Baltimore’s Joe Flacco threw a touchdown pass to Anquan Boldin nine years ago against San Francisco.
Rams coach Sean McVay improved to 48-1 when leading at the half.
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.