Good article by Ben Solak on how McVay won the game by changing his offensive strategy on the final drive:
https://www.theringer.com/nfl-playoffs/2022/2/14/22933209/sean-mcvay-offense-matthew-stafford-rams-super-bowlQuote:
All game long, the Bengals were defending a McVay offense—until suddenly they weren’t. They were defending a Taylorian offense in terms of formations and quick throws. Once McVay got the Bengals on their back foot with this approach, he never paused to let them recover. The Rams’ game-winning drive was far from perfect; L.A. had to convert a fourth-and-1 after a third-and-1 run from a condensed set failed to gain an inch. But it did the job: Easy, underneath throws became much more available.
This drive was fueled by Stafford above all else. This moment was a final, emphatic reminder of what he’s always been capable of, but was constantly overlooked when he was playing in meaningless regular-season games in Detroit. In Sunday’s decisive sequence, after carefully moving the Rams offense down the field, Stafford pulled Vonn Bell just far enough out of his zone window to zing a no-look strike to Kupp in stride, over the middle. It was a 22-yard gain—the only 20-plus-yard play the Rams had after Beckham left with his injury. It was the only one they needed.
The 12th drive was all about change for McVay. Not just change at quarterback, as the Rams’ trade to upgrade from Jared Goff to Stafford was the defining move of the last offseason. Not just change in personnel, as the Rams had to overcome myriad injuries both leading into and during the Super Bowl. It was also about in-game tactical changes that he failed to make in his first Super Bowl appearance. The opposing defense took away what he wanted to do, but unlike in that 13-3 loss to the Patriots, he adapted. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t immediate. It was still enough to change the narrative.
There are a lot of universes in which that 12th Rams drive never happens. Heck, there are a lot of universes in which the Rams don’t kick last-second field goals against the Buccaneers or 49ers, and in which the Bengals fall short against either the Titans or Chiefs. This was a chaotic playoffs, and from that chaos we will extract and distill many narratives. For all the focus on Stafford and the Rams’ all-in approach, though, the NFL season came down to one drive. McVay had both the talent and the wherewithal to adapt, and as a result the Rams are Super Bowl champions.
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Antonio Gramsci wrote:
The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.