LOS ANGELES — Sean McVay strode through the bowels of SoFi Stadium with the edge of a high-wire Super Bowl finally wearing off. He’d traded his sweats for gray suit pants and a matching vest over a white button-down shirt. He had his defensive coordinator and close friend, Raheem Morris, flanking him and a vodka drink in his left hand in an oversize, silver cup emblazoned with the Rams’ logo.
And as he closed in on the team bus, taking him off to celebrate, the points he kept making about Super Bowl LVI only mirrored what he’s preached over five years in L.A.
“It epitomizes what’s great about our best players. They shine the brightest in the tightest moments when they’ve gotta do it,” McVay told me. “You hear me talk about competitive greatness all the time, being your best when your best is required. Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp, Aaron Donald. I thought [Andrew] Whitworth’s protection was outstanding. And they’re world champs now.”
The Rams—after elbowing their way through a tractor pull of a game and scoring a 23–20 TKO of a feisty Bengals team—sure are. And McVay wasn’t done.
“The best part about this team, Albert, is they played for each other,” he continued. “You bring in guys that are superstars like Von Miller and Odell Beckham [Jr.], and they were huge superstars that were instrumental in us winning this championship, but they wanted to win for their teammates as much as anything. I thought we came together as a team at the most important moments.
“That’s why this is so special, because everybody wanted it more for somebody else other than themselves.”
Over the last month, McVay talked about winning a Lombardi Trophy for Stafford. Eric Weddle talked about winning one for Donald. Everyone wanted to win one for Whitworth.
Which, really, is what McVay strived to build——since he got the job in 2017.
That he’s accomplished it mattered a lot in Super Bowl LVI. It mattered when Beckham went down, with what the Rams fear to be a torn ACL. It mattered when the second half couldn’t have started worse, with a 75-yard touchdown heave from Joe Burrow followed by a Stafford pick. It mattered when Stafford and the offense got the ball back with 6:13 left and 79 yards to go. It definitely mattered when the defense needed one last stop.
And because the Rams could count on their best players, and their best players could count on one another, the team won it all.
The future has its uncertainties. On this night, that didn’t matter.
This night was everything the Rams had been building toward.
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