Super Bowl LVI: Rams Vs. Bengals Odds, Picks and Predictions
MaximBet reveals the best Big Game bets as Joe Burrow duels Matthew Stafford for the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
Journey back with me to the year 1990. I was 16 years old, a young Los Angeles Rams fan living in the foothills of East Tennessee because my state did not have an NFL team at that time.
I picked the Rams as my favorite team off a poster when I was 4 years old. I thought they had the coolest helmets and here, looking back, now 48 years young, I gotta say four-year-old me was dead on. It’s still the coolest NFL helmet, even updated.
It’s only rival… the only helmet to come close to the coolness of that Rams lid belonged to the Cincinnati Bengals. And as a young football prognosticator, I looked at the Bengals, who had represented the AFC in the Super Bowl in the 1988-89, and the Rams, who made it to the NFC Championship in the 1989-90 season, and made the bold declaration that the Rams and Bengals would face off in Super Bowl XXV.
They did not.
The Rams never even made the playoffs that season. Cincinnati was knocked out by the Los Angeles Raiders in the Divisional Round. The New York Giants defeated the Buffalo Bills 20-19 in one of the best Super Bowls ever played.
So, my prediction did not come true. Not then. No, it would take 32 years for the Rams and Bengals to face off in the big game, for my 16-year-old desire put forth into the universe to come to fruition.
All I can say about that is, if any of my other 16-year-old hopes and dreams want to come true, Cindy Crawford, my DMs are open.
Let’s take a look at our contenders before we get to the Super Bowl odds, spreads and totals from MaximBet.
Los Angeles Rams
The Rams looked at their roster last offseason and noticed a glaring hole at quarterback. It didn’t matter that they happened to have a guy slotted there already in Jared Goff. So, Los Angeles packaged Goff, a couple of first round picks and a third rounder and shipped them to the Detroit Lions for the services of Matthew Stafford, himself a former No. 1 overall pick.
It was an “All In” move from the Rams, who ended up making a couple more before the regular season ended, trading a second and third round pick to the Denver Broncos for Von Miller and signing Odell Beckham Jr., fresh off the Cleveland Browns, to an incentive-laden contract. Incentives that he, to this point, has earned.
L.A. came out of the gate strong, stumbled about Week 9 or so, then righted the ship just in time to roll through the playoffs and end Tom Brady’s career with a bloody lip and knock off the San Francisco 49ers in what, for Jimmy Garoppolo at least, turned into a loser leaves-the-state-of-California match.
Cincinnati Bengals
Back in the preseason, the odds for the Bengals to make the Super Bowl were +15000 at MaximBet. That means if you laid $100 on Cincy back in August, you can buy a brand-new Harley Davidson Softail today.
Yes, the Bengals weren’t “supposed” to be here, yet here they are, winning every single game in the AFC playoffs by dramatic fashion.
Whether it was holding the Las Vegas Raiders out of the end zone in the final seconds, to nailing a winning field goal as time expired against a Tennessee Titans team that sacked Joe Burrow enough for him to file a restraining order to, lastly, going into Kansas City, winning in overtime and preventing Jackson Mahomes from performing his nude feather boa victory dance.
We’re all pretty grateful for that one.
Joe Burrow, in just his second season and first full season, delivered for the Bengals the same thing he did for LSU. He’s a winner. The man, in college and the pros, has not lost a playoff game.
Super Bowl LVI Betting Pick
Los Angeles Rams (-4.5) vs. Cincinnati Bengals
Over/Under 48.5
There is no bad story for the winner of this game.
For the Rams, Stafford slogged away more than a decade of his career in Detroit only to be saved and lead the Rams to the title the guy they drafted No. 1 overall couldn’t. Aaron Donald gets his Super Bowl championship, the only thing lacking on his resume, as does Jalen Ramsey. There’s Andrew Whitworth, Von Miller, Cooper Kupp, Odell Beckham Jr…. I could go on.
With the Bengals, it’s Burrow winning the Super Bowl in his second season, something that only all-timers have done, whether it’s Kurt Warner and Russell Wilson or the GOAT himself, Tom Brady.
It’s Burrow and Chase teaming up for their second championship in three seasons. It’s Zac Taylor, a guy that opened the year on the hot seat, winning a championship with a team he built from scratch.
It would be Cincy’s first ever Super Bowl championship out of three tries. A team that hadn’t won a playoff game in over three decades when the season opened could be holding the Vince Lombardi Trophy as it ends. And I’m sure there’s more stories than that.
Ultimately, looking at this one, the Rams have such a matchup advantage in the trenches on both sides of the ball, it has to matter. If not in the Super Bowl, when?
Take the Rams at -4.5 or the Rams moneyline at -182.
Score prediction: Rams 31, Bengals 24 (so take the over)
Adam Greene is @TheFirstMan on Twitter.
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