A little over a year ago, Matthew Stafford, the 2009 first-choice pick, decided to have had enough. Tired of one of the most dysfunctional teams in the NFL (National Football League), the professional football league, he asked to be traded. He wanted a fresh start.
At the same time, Joe Burrow, the first pick of the 2020 draft, was recovering from torn knee ligaments. He had been injured in his rookie season after being signed to try to save another team with a history of far more losses than wins.
The two quarterbacks will face each other this Sunday (13), at 8:30 pm, in the Super Bowl, the final of the NFL. The match will be broadcast on ESPN, on closed TV, and on RedeTV!, on open TV.
Burrow, 25, will try to make the Cincinnati Bengals underdog champion. Stafford, 34, is favorite for the title with the Los Angeles Rams, who will play at home. SoFi Stadium opened in September 2020 at an estimated cost of US$6 billion.
As is sometimes the case in American sports, the Rams have switched headquarters on multiple occasions. They started in Cleveland and are in Los Angeles for the second time. They returned to the city in 2016. They also passed through St. Louis. They have three NFL titles, but only one of them won in the Super Bowl era, which began in the 1966 season. It was in 1999, when the team was in St. Louis.
The Cincinnati Bengals have never been champions. Taking the field this Sunday equals his best campaigns. In 1981 and 1988 he also reached the Super Bowl, but lost in both games to the San Francisco 49ers.
In the recruiting system used in the NFL, the worst teams each season have the right to select college-leaving athletes first. These choices are usually from players who act as quarterbacks, the pitchers, the most important position in the sport. And when the last place chooses first, the chosen one arrives as a savior.
So it was with Stafford. He was supposed to change the history of the Detroit Lions, an untitled team that remained so for the quarterback’s 12-year tenure. Three times they made the playoffs and lost in the first game. When he left for the Rams, he already had the franchise record for passing yards (37,936) and for touchdowns (234).
It was little. Disillusioned, he confessed that he needed a fresh start to pursue his dream: to win the most important game of all: the Super Bowl. Believing in Stafford’s potential, the Rams gave their quarterback (Jared Goff) and future rookie picks to the Lions.
In Los Angeles, Stafford found a powerful weapon. His preferred shooting target is wide receiver Cooper Kupp, one of the best in the NFL. He was also joined, midway through the season, by Odel Beckham Jr., a talented, acrobatic and temperamental wide receiver. Someone who, after being traded to the New York Giants and flopped to the Cleveland Browns, had as much to prove as his quarterback.
Because of the investments and being a team from Los Angeles, one of the big American markets, the Rams already had expectations of success. The surprise was the Cincinnati Bengals. The team made the divisional and championship (sort of semifinal and final of its conference) away from home, against opponents much more rated to advance.
He defeated the Tennessee Titans (the best record in the AFC) and the Kansas City Chiefs of star Patrick Mahomes. Always far from your domains. Always winning by three points.
Burrow also arrived as someone who could change the future of the franchise and, after recovering from his knee injury, he had to adapt quickly to another situation: the performance of his offensive line, the players who should protect him and give him time to throw. He received 51 sacks (when the rival defense knocks him down with the ball) for the season, the most in the league.
He said he was so focused that he abandoned social media in the days before the Super Bowl.
“Work in silence. Don’t show anyone what you’re doing. Let your performance show the hard work you’ve been doing. Don’t worry about this social media business,” he said.
Burrow knows he’s very close to a moment most NFL players only dream of: winning the Super Bowl. And he can achieve that in just his second season. Stafford waited 13 to be in this final. But he believes his patience in Detroit paid dividends in Los Angeles.
“If I said that we are not products of our experiences or that we have not learned from the past, I would be lying,” he declared.
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